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TKOCLMM LIBERTY THROUGHODT THE lAAD, UNTO ALL THE INHABITANTS THEREOF. 



1 



1^1 Union and Liberty one and Inseparable, Now and Forever. ^ 









RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED TO 



■M His Excellency President Andrew Johnson. ^ 






THE FRIEND AND CHAMPION OF THE CONSTITUTION. 









PORTLAND : ;>. 

VH ^' ^' Rich, I'rinter, .runction Free aii<i M:ici<lle Sts. p^7/ 

IS G 6 . 




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THE STANDARD OF UNION AND LIBERTY. 



Proclaim Liberty throughout the land, unto all the inhabitants thereof.' 



Union and Liberty one and inseparable, now and forever. 



The sovereign States covenanted to become United into one Fed- 
eral Government, and issued their Covenant, or the United States 
Constitution, by which they should be guided, and it was adopted 
by our Fathers and their successors as the fundamental law of the 
Nation. It is in fact the Covenant or United States Constitution that 
creates and keeps vi exu^tence the Federal Government. Attempt to im- 
pair the obligations of that contract, Xorth or South, by Statute Law, 
and you commit Treason against the Constitution, notwithstanding the 
Statute Law is void, because every public officer has taken the oath 
to support the Constitution of the United States as the supreme law 
of the land. This Covenant or Constitution, hke the Divine com- 
mand of Grace, is ordered in all things sure, and therefore the Na- 
tional and Family Government being founded on the eternal princi- 
ple of truth or law, is safe against ail who rise to overthrow it, — this 
principle of law or truth, is an eternal principle emanating from God 
to man, and transfuses itself throughout his entire being, bringing 
its retributive i-eward for conformity or non-conformity thereto. — See 
1st Exodus, 3d and 4th chapters. 

"Great is truth, and mighty above all things." "Wine is strongest 
of all things," wrote one of the wise men ; " the King is the strong- 
est," wrote the second ; the third wrote, "Women are the strong- 
est: but above all things. Truth beareth away the victory.''' The con- 
tract of marriage is laid down in the Word of God as being perpet- 
ual, and the marriage vow at the altar is taken after God's holy or- 
dinance. The husband and wife by that covenant being held to vol- 
untary service for life to each other, and to be one in interest, so 
that they should be delivered upon requisition, and should inherit 



each other's property at the decease of either party, without going 
through a process of law to substantiate a "Will. The Statute law of 
"divorce and dower," like the " liberty bills," are void, being in 
violation of that clause in the fundamental law — the Constitution — 
viz: "The Legislature shall pass no law impairing the obligation of 
contracts." "The Judges sliall be governed by the Constitution of 
the United States, any State law to the contrary notwithstanding." 
And as the Legislature and Judges have taken the oath to support 
that Constitution, and Congress has passed a law to punish those 
who violate it, or commit treason, for the protection of National af- 
fairs : it should also include the protection of Family Government, 
which is included in the United States Constitution ; for without the 
covenant of marriage is thus protected, there is no fmiily, and her- 
itable blood does not flow, and the State can claim tlie property of 
every citizen by the treason committed by Legislators and Judges, 
if the people do not assert their rights, and the Judges and Legisla- 
tors in accordance with their oath of office to support the Constitu- 
tion. 

By soft words and hard arguments, we should stiive to convince 
and not to vex our opponents. It may be not only warrantable but 
necessary to defend a cause by explaining opinions and recommend- 
ing peace and good will as creatures of our common nature, endowed 
with noble principles of action, and yet limited to so short a time 
one might suppose that nothing but love and harmony would be 
found here on earth. Yet unhappily, how constantly do we find to 
the contrary. Contradiction expressed in gross terms, inflames the 
passions, and passionate disputes seldom enlighten the understand- 
ing, though they often extinguish the light of reason. There is as 
much wisdon3 in bearifig with other people's defects, as in being 
sensible of their good qualities, and we should make the follies of 
others a warning and instruction to ourselves. This is the way to 
preserve the mind in charity and peace, to correct ourselves and to 
reform the world. It is always a term time in the court of con- 
science, and every one committing a trespass is a prisoner of justice 
as soon as it is done. Divine justice comes with leaden feet, yet if 
we persist in our oflences, it will strike with iron hands. If the cir- 
cumstances of the life and death of Christ, what he did and suftered, 
and what he has commanded and forbidden, were made the rule of 



life, we should feel our existence in a very different manner, and our 
days would pass in greater peace. There can be no lawgiver with- • 
out power to establish his laws, and there can be no power without 
law. Nothing in the animal or material world possesses a greater 
number of parts separated from each other in any considerable de- 
gree, than the mind possesses, nor are they adapted to each other with 
greater harmony than the laws of mind. The laws and powers of 
mind necessary to contrivance, which the framers of the Constitu- 
tion possessed in an eminent degree, and which their sons appear to 
be deficient in, are fourteen, viz: — Two kinds of idea, correspond- 
ing to sensation and conception. The power of distinguishing 
these ideas from each other, attention, abstraction, association, ima- 
gination, memory, belief, the truth of our belief, desire, or the pref- 
erence of some sensations above others, a regard for the future, and^ 
lastly, power. Remove any of these from the mind of a being that 
possesses them, and his nature is so changed that he can produce 
nothing by design. 

If we were told that a time-piece had been found of a construction 
never before known, and set in motion by a power never before 
used or discovered — that its motions were regulated neither by a 
pei\dulura, a balance or a spring, but in a way with which we are 
unacquainted — that this machine kept good time and pointed out 
every hour and minute of the day with the regularity and exactness 
of a clock, we should not conjecture that this might be the work of 
an uninteligent author. The fact that we were unacquainted with 
the nature of the machinery, instead of weakening our conclusions 
that it was produced without design, would only serve to increase 
our opinion of the genius and wisdom of the contriver. 

What city of refuge can this nation flee to when God visits with 
his judgmeut ? He has said that he is the husband of the w^idow, 
and that "His name is the Lord of Hosts," and "if the widow and 
fatherless be afflicted in any Avise by oppression, that He will hear 
their cry if they call on Him, and will send war, pestilence and fam- 
ine" upon her adversaries. The Statute Laws of State, in violation 
of constitutional law, places the widow and her minor children pre- 
cisely as the States of the South in the position. The State as- 
sumes authority over them by impairing the marriage contract, 
and by making the widow subject to her husband's Will, or rather 



the will of the Judge of Probate. In other words, the husband 
owns the services of his wife, and the children during their mi- 
nority, by providing them food and raiment ; and if at his decease, 
by his profligacy, he may leave them shelterless, and the widow 
complain of want for her famishing children, the authorities will 
separate them from her — for the mother has no more claim to her 
children than the colored slave to her. If no Will, the widow has 
a "dower," the husband's relations being his heir, and the mother 
is placed under bonds to be guardian to her children, if those of 
twelve years choose her for guardian, and she must keep accounts 
and vouchers to carry to the Judge of Probate, to settle accounts 
and divide her substance Avith him. The civil powers have taken 
out the main-spring of the watch — the Constitution — when they 
remove one of the two faces of creation — Woman. 

Neither has the wife of the North a more certain hold of her hus- 
band than has the slave wife, for if she complain of inconstancy or 
brutality, she will doubtless lose him by divorce. But if the people 
be wanting in themselves, there is no remedy for the distemper, al- 
though the Constitution has provided a remedy for every distemper 
in the Government. For if the distemper be found in the Court, it 
can be remedied by the Legislature ; and if it be found in the Le- 
gislature, it can be remedied by the Constitution ; and if it be in 
the Constitution, it can be remedied by the People. But a lack of 
understanding in the people cannot be remedied. The civil powers 
this year, who so zealously advocate emancipation of slaves, have 
had every point discussed and proved to them, and yet they have 
spurned the widow's prayer for justice, for they love to have it so. 
We would therefore refer them to the second book of Exodus, 
(Apochrypha,) 15th chapter, and request a careful perusal on or be- 
fore the National Fast Day; also the 14th and 15th chapters of the 
same book. 



THE STANDARD OF UNION AND LIBERTY. 

At my request, Hon. L. M. Morrill gave me a letter of introduc- 
tion to President Lincoln, but on my showing him the nature of my 
business with him as embodied in the following petition, preamble, 
resolve, &c., he requested me to return his letter to him, as it was 



not the President's business, and he had much business to attend to, 
and he said he would see that I had justice done rae for mal-adminis- 
tration. I gave him his letters and my proof of default in the settle- 
ment of my husband's estate, and he gave them to the Judiciary 
Committee. I went before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate 
and House, and gave them a brief statement of the case. I showed 
that Judge B., by appointing a guardian for ray foster-child, (who 
had been given to me by his father and mother,) out of the State, 
made ^ farce of putting the Guardian under bonds, as he placed him 
beyond ten miles of the Probate Com% and the Court consequently had 
no jurisdiction over him, and I thought I could claim him by requi- 
sition, as owing service to me during his minority. I showed them 
the sympathy King David expressed, in 2d Samuel, 18th, 3 9th and 
20th chapters, for his rebellious son Absolem, and the w^ords of Gen. 
Joab, and the part of the warriors, and the acts of Sheba, and the 
wise woman of Israel, as an illustration of my case, and that of the 
State and of the Judge, <S:c. How significant, are Joab's words in 
the 19th chapter, oth and Gth verses, and how like that of the Judi- 
ciary Committee and other Stat43 officers ; and how appropriate, and 
what wisdom was displayed by her, as recorded in the 20th chapter 
of this 2d Book of Samuel, 22djVerse, and what a lesson did it teach 
Congress, as well as the State of Maine, to whom I sent it. " Ye 
will not come unto me [as a mediator] that ye may have life," said 
•our Saviour, and so I may well say. 



Copy of the Petition presented to Congress^ Legislotmreof the State of Maine, 

and to U. S. AUorney Gen. Pates, States Alfij Gen' Is Drummond and 

Peters, the G&nermr of Maine, and their rephj. 

Respectfully prays the undersigned for indemnity for the mal-ad- 
mini.«tration of the estate of her husband, (Henry Thurston, master 
mariner, deceased,) by the Judge of Pr<i>bate of Cumberland County, 
Hon. Wm. G. Barrows. 

JANE P. THURSTON, 

Widow and Guardian. 

Whereas, Plon. W. G. Barrows impaired the obligation of the 
marriage contract of Henry Thwrston, and would thereby work at- 
tainder of treason, so that heritable blood would cease to be trans- 
mitted, 



6 

Resolved, That we indemnify Mrs. Jane P. Thueston, his widow, 
and thus repair the damage sustained by her in the loss of her estate, 
and thereby preserve family Government. Otherwise, she claims 
the legal right to present the State of Maine to the General Gov- 
ernment in a breach of faith, 

JANE P, THURSTON. 



To the Governor of the State of Maine : 

Sir: — I enclose to you a claim for which I hold the State of Maine 
responsible. The Officers and Agents of the State having failed, 
not only to do me justice, but also having' done me gross injustice 
in many instances, I hold the State responsible for their doings, 
and all damages sustained thereby. I therefore respectfully ask 
you, after auditing the within account, to draw me a warrant on the 
Treasury for its amount. 

Kespectfully, 

JANE P. THUESTON, 

Per M. M. Butler, Dist. Att'y, County of Cumberland, Maine. 



State of Maine, Coitncil Chambee, 
Augusta, Feb. 26, 1864. 
Mrs. Thurston : — Your account is herewith returned. The State 
does not hold itself accountable for bills of the character presented 
to us by you. If you have been injured pecuniarily by the parties 
named, your remedy must be found with them or their sureties. 

The design of the funds in the Treasury, is to conduct the public 
service, and not to pay the claims of individuals who have been un- 
able to recover them from their debtors. Its exhaustion would be 
equivalent to death, in a very short time, if such a course of treat- 
ment were adopted. Yery respectfully, 

CHAELES HOLDEN, Chairman Ex. Council. 



Washington, May 6, 1864. 
Bear Madam : — Your case is still with the Judiciary Committee. 
In reply to your enquiries, when it will be acted upon, I can give 
you no certain information. Eespectfully, yours, 

L. M. MOEEILL. 
Mrs. Thurston. 



Washington, May 7, 1864. 
Mrs. Jane P. Thurston, Portland, Me. 

Madam : — I am instructed by Gov. Morgan to acknowledge the 
receipt of your favor of 5tli inst., relating to your case, which has 
been carefully perused ; and he wishes me to suggest to you that 
he thinks it a proper case to be referred to the Senators from your 
State, Respectfully Yours, 

W. MAETIN JONES, Secretary.' 



Attoeney Geneeal's Ofeice, ) 
Washington, April 22d, 1864. \ 
To Mrs. Jane P. Thurston, Portland, Me. 

Madam: — I have heedfully considered your recent application to 
me, with, I hope, a good disposition to perform all the duties of 
my office which, in law and reason, may be found to belong, proper- 
ly to the subject matter of your communication. 

I find that your complaint is a charge or presentment/against the 
State of Maine, for an alleged breach of faith, and for impairing the 
obligation of the marriage contract. 

Thus Madam, you present questions of the utmost gravity, and 
doubtless of much difficulty to any tribunal which may lawfully 
assume jurisdiction thereof. And perhaps, in my weakness, it may 
be my good fortune to have no jurisdiction over the subject, and no 
right to take any action in relation thereto. 

The State of Maine stands independent and above any and all 
powers vested by law in my office, which can possibly relate to the 
subject-matter of your complaint. And therefore Madam^ I must 
be excused for declining to discuss or entertain a subject upon 
which I have no lawful power to act. 

I remain, very respectfully, 

Madam, Your Ob't Serv't, 

EDW. BATES. 



' Washington, June 27, 1864. 

Pro. Merrill: — I sent the papers of Mrs. Thurston per mail on 
receipt of yours of 18th. I forget whether I wrote you to that 
effect. Yours, 

L. M. MOEEILL. 
A. Meeeill, Esq., Portland. 



8 

SPECIAL NOTICE. 

QuEEY. — What penalty would be attached to the crime of offering 
Judge Davis the letter (of Hon. J. A. Peters, Chairman of the 
Judiciary Committee,) to read, and inquiring of Judge Davis after 
he had read the letter whether we have a Eamily Government 01* 
not? Particularly when His Excellency Gov. Coburn referred me to 
the Judiciary for an answer. Judge Davis told me to-day if I did 
the like again he should take measures to prevent it in future. The 
letter of Hon. Mr. Peters, was in reply to a petition to the Legislature 
for indemnification for the loss of my Estate. The Judge of Pror 
bate not having kept my husband's written Covenant or Will ; and 
a petition from citizens of Portland and vicinity for the Law to ber 
made to conform to the Divine Covenant, and written contract of 
church marriage. My reply was, Well, Judge Davis, you see no- 
man in this State has a legal claim to his wife. The divine ordin- 
ance of marriage^ only, now bind wives to husband. Gov. Coburn 
advised me to apply to the Judiciary department of our Goverment 
for a solution to my question, whether the Judge of Probate could 
constitutionally deprive me of my Family Government and Estate,. 
in violation of my husband's written Covenant or AYill. 

All contracts are based on a consideration ; remove the- considera- 
tion given to the wife by the husband and the marriage would become- 
void. Did not the Constituiiton of the State say : '^' The Legisla- 
ture shall pass no law iiiipairing the obligation of Contracts ; " — 
and the Judges taken oath to support tho Constitution ; which is the- 
Law of the State. Because women in their ignorance, have here- 
tofore petitioEsed the Court of Probate to appoint administrators and 
executors to settle- the estate of their partners, according- to the' laws 
made by Main© Legislature instead ©f the Covenant of their hus- 
bands, for seventy-five years, it does not follow that Judge Barrows 
should have refusd my petitions-' to settle according to my husband's 
written Covenant or Will ; or that the Chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee should have covered the sin of the Judge and allowed 
him to be promoted instead of going to Thomaston, Locke says : 
"A man (or woman,) as has been proved, ea-itnot subject himself to 
the arbitary power of another, and having in a state of nature nc 
arbitary power over the life, liberty or possessions of another, but 
only so much as the law of nature gave him for the preservation o€ 



himself and the rest of mankind ; this is all he doth or can give up 
to the community, and by it to the Legislative power so that the Leg- 
islature can have no more than this. Their power in the utmost 
bounds of it is limited to the public good of society. It is a power 
that can have no other end but preservation, and therefore can 
never have a right to destroy, enslave or designedly injure the sub- 
ject. ''The obligation of the laws of nature," says Locke, cease not 
in society, but only in many cases are drawn closer, and have by hu- 
man laws known penalties annexed to them to enforce their obser- 
vation. Thus the laws of nature stand as the eternal rule to Leo:- 
islators as well as to others. The rule they make for other men's 
actions, must as well as their own, be conformable to the laws of 
nature — that is, to the will of God, of which that is a declaration, 
and the fundamental law of nature, being preservation of mankind, 
no human sanction can be good against it. In the law of nations 
the law of nature is included — included but not annihilated. Any 
child of twelve years, unless void of understanding, could say after 
reading the above, that the Judge of Probate, and the Legislature, 
cannot "impair the contract" of my husband, without violating the 
constitution of the State of Maine, and violating the law of God, 
and "no human sanction can be good against them." 

J. P. THURSTON. 
Portland, April G, 1863. 



TO MAEEIED MEN. 
Married men should learn, throughout the States, that " servitude 
always creates two slaves ; he who holds the chain, and he who 
wears it." Marriage is the union of two free beings, forming an 
alliance in order to perfect themselves through love. To-day the 
ideal of marriage is enlarged ; we comprehend that it is the blend- 
ing of two souls for mutual perfection, and that the two spouses 
should belong wholly to each other. In its nature marriage is in- 
dissoluble, but the Legislature has deemed it right to render possi- 
ble the separation of the spouses ; this measure is immoral and un- 
fortunate, both for the parties and for their children. It is in vio- 
lation of the divine covenant of marriage, and in violation of the 
United States Constitution, in which the covenant of m.arriage is 
embraced. So that it becomes treason to the law of God, and trea- 



10 

son to the Coiistitiition of the Uuited States, and of each State, thus 
to impair the obligation of the marriage contract by Legislatures, or 
by the Judges of Courts. Man and woman are equal, but different. 
We do not know in reality to what heights woman can attain. We 
cannot judge her by what she is to-day, since she is the work of the 
eternal oppressions of man — since she has never had a fair and 
equal opportunity of testing the powers of her mind, except in our 
high public schools, where it is acknowledged, that in mathematics 
and other high branches of study, she carries the palm over the 
brothers. Who can say whether the many ills that rend society, 
and of the insoluble problems that trouble it, particularly the rebel- 
lion at the present time in this nation, may not be caused in part 
by the annihilation of one of the two forces of creation, the ban 
placed on female gefil'us, and the violation by Legislatures and 
Judges of their oath to support the Constitution as the supreme law 
of the United States, with regard to the marriage contract, by keep- 
ing the obligation of it unimpaired. An equality of difference ex- 
ists between men and vv^omen. To men belong synthesis, superior- 
ity in all comprehensive vievrs, genius, muscular force ; to women 
belong the spirit of analysis, the comprehension of details, imagin- 
ation, tenderness, grace. Man lias more strength of reason and 
body ; wom.an more strength of heart, with a marvelous perspicaci- 
ty to" which man will never attain. "Man is born of woman," ev- 
erything therefore that benefits women will benefit man. To figlit 
and conquer for her, is to fight and conquer for himself. To honor, 
cherish and protect her as a wife, or in society, is doing the same 
for himself, and vice versa, and with woman toward man. Mar- 
riage is a religious act — it is an act of faith, in whicli the civil pow- 
ers take part as did our Saviour, by a miracle, at the marriage at 
Cana of Gallilee. The civil powers authorized or legalized the cler- 
gy and others, by licensing them to perform the Sacred Eite of 
Marriage after God's holy ordinance, and to witness for the parties 
and for the State, and to make a public record of the Genealogy of 
all persons, like as Christ's Genealogy was, may be traced. " Wo- 
man has tlie same rights as man to liberty and equality ; the sexes 
are equal, not through similitude, but equivalence of faculties and 
functions : man produces, acquires — -^roman administers, economis- 
es ; it belongs, therefore, to men to provide for the expenses of the 



11 

household. It is his duty, on uniting himself to woman, to settle 
on her an inalienable dower that will permit her to perform hei 
maternal functions properly, and to escape from the vices that fre- 
quently result from want and abandonment." 

Says an eminent French writer, (M. de Girardin,) "The wife 
who has brought no dowry, and receives no dower, sinks under the 
weight of a toil contrary to nature, ^ hich obliges her, through econ- 
omy, to separate herself from her young infant child, and go to 
work in one direction, while her husband works in another, and not 
rejoin till evening, when each returns from their workshop which 
has kept them from their household all day. If this is what is 
called the family, it is indeed worth all the stir that is made about it. 
Long enough has man been the impersonification of war, of slavery, 
of conquest : it is the turn of woman to be the personification of 
peace, of liberty, of civilization. Woman, belonging to herself, and 
being dependent only on her reason, has the same rights as men to 
liberty and equality." "Is woman the equal of man before social 
and political rights ?" The people begin to feel the great truth, 
that the liberty of woman is identical with that of the masses. — 
Love is justice in its holiest type. Eestore to unmarried women, 
who are of age, and to widows, whom ^ou neither protect nor main- 
tain — restore to the wives, who have no need of your protection, 
since the Constitutional law protects them, even against you — to the 
wives whom you do not maintain, since they bring you a dowry, or 
a profession, or services which you would be obliged to recompense, 
if any other rendered them to you — restore to woman her rights. 
AVoman is ripe for civil liberty, and henceforth v\'hoever shall rise 
against her lawful claim, is an enemy of progress and of revolution, 
while those who declare themselves in favor of her civil emancipa- 
tion, will rank among the friends of progress and revolution. 

JANE P. THUESTON. 



THE STANDAED OF UNION AND LIBEETY. 

Throw to tiie breezes the white flag, and thus invite cessation of 
hostilities. Let the remnant that remain of those through whose 
veins courses the blood of the revolutionary sires, and all others, and 
who desire such a remnant shall exist in the United States, or that 
a remnant of mankind on earth shall exist, rally to this standard. 



12 

Invite, throiigli the press of the North, the South to unite with 
the North in sending delegates to a National Convention for a se- 
lection of a candidate for a President of the United States on the 
platform of the covenant of their fathers, viz : the Constitution of 
the United States, which Constitution embraces every covenant, even 
the " Covenant of Grace, whereby we are saved through faith, and 
not of ourselves ; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man 
should boast." Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace 
with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we have re- 
demption through His name. The Covenant of Grace, and the Uni- 
ted States Constitution, are the only anchor to cast our hopes on for 
eternal, spiritual or temporal salvation of even a remnant of tliis 
nation, and of any other nation who will be drawn into the struggle 
as by a whirlpool, and thus destroy the world. If vre require North 
and South to keep the covenant of the fathers, we cannot plead for 
our eternal salvation, the covenant of grace, or that of the covenant 
of marriage, or that any other covenant shall be kept. Eally around 
this standard all ye who desire to see good days ; let his tongue re- 
frain from evil, and his lips speak no guile, and not impair the Con- 
stitution — the obligation of this contract of our fathers. Eead Ex- 
odus, second book, 16th chapter Apochrapha, and 14th and 15th. 

Learn wisdom from the words of the northern forests. " Why 
are we kept in ignorance and driven back, while the negro of the 
South, who was happy in his cottage, is made the object for the sale 
of white men for this war. 

JANE P. TIIUESTON. 

Portland, July U, 186-L 



ACCOUNT AND LETTEE EETUENED BY JUDICIAL COM- 
MITTEES OE THE LEGISLATUEE AND CONGEESS. 

PoETLAND, Eeb. 19, 1864. 
His Excellency Gov. Cony and Council and Judiciary Committee: 

I send herewith my accounts, and have sent vouchers or attested 
copies from the Probate Court to the Committee on Claims, to whom 
I would refer you for the copies. 

I claim that the marriage covenant was broken by Probate Judge 
Barrows, inasmuch as my husband, "master mariner at sea," gave 
me possession of his personal estate and appointed me his administra- 



13 

tor, and the Judge refused to keep his contract, and appohil:ed his 
own friend administrator, and allowed him, as you will see by the 
accounts, to swindle me out of my estate, adversely to my petitions. 
It strikes me that the marriage contract is a divine ordinance, and 
is also a civil contract. Tlie husband and wife have voluntarily 
entered the service of each other for life, and to make the contract 
legally binding, the husband endows his wife, or at least my hus- 
band did, Avith all his worldly' goods equally with himself. lie gave 
me his keys and said, " I give you all ; let us draw together, and 
save something for our old age." If the marriage contract is im- 
paired, is it not an attainder of treason? And does it not work a 
corruption of blood ? and does not the corruption of blood stop the 
transmission of heritable blood to all the heirs of the person attaint- 
ed, so that he can neither take land by descent himself, nor trans- 
mit heritable blood to the person who could, but for his attainder, 
have been his heir. Does not the attainder corrupt the blood of my 
children, and of my brothers and sisters, or all the people in the 
United States, so that no heritable blood is transmitted ? Who is 
responsible for the attainder of treason to family government or 
covenant of marriage ? Is it the legislators, the judges or the sove- 
reign people? Sovereign people does not include women, for wo- 
men cannot vote or make laws any more than persons held to invol- 
untary service. Very respectfully, 

JANE P. THUESTON. 



THE STAND AED OF UNION' AND LIBEETY. 

We have asserted, and proved without contradiction^ that the ob- 
ligation of the civil contract of marriage in this State has Jjeen im- 
paired by the officers of Government, and we claim the legal right 
to rescind the civil contract of marriage, and claim an equivalent in 
damages of the State of Maine for the direct gains which vre should 
have realized from the performance of the same. We would advise 
the public officers, and all others, hereafter to adhere to and keep 
inviolable the oath of allegiance to the Government and Constitu- 
tion entered into by our fathers when they framed the Constitution 
or Union of the States, which oath is the basis on which rests the 
Eepublic. The marriage covenant being included in that of the 
national covenant or United States Constitution, which says, "The 



14 

Legislature shall pass no law impairing the obligation of contracts, 
and the Judges shall be governed by the Constitution of the United 
States as the Supreme law of the land, any State law tp the contra- 
ry notwithstanding;" and all the Judges have taken the oath to 
support that Constitution, it is therefore treason for them to make 
or execute a will in violation thereof. And we have given proof 
that my husband's Will was made to conform to this covenant of 
marriage, and to the laws of this State Constitution, and of the 
Statute law, that " a mariner at sea may dispose of his esta,te " re- 
gardless of the chapter that governs the landsmen, as the Constitu- 
tion and Ptcvised Statutes direct. 

JANE P. THURSTON. 



" UNION AND LIBEETY, Ol^E AND INSEPAEABLE, NOW 
AND FOEEVEE." 

1st. — Wo assert, without fear of contradiction from any Judge of 
the Supreme Judicial or United States Courts, or from any lawyer, 
that the Fathers of the Eevolution founded the Constitution and the 
Union of the States upon the principle of the family Constitution 
and Union, viz : " What God hath joined together, let not man put 
asunder. They are no more twain but one flesh." One interest, 
revolving like the planet in its own sphere, sovereign, independent 
of every other, subject only to the laws by which it is governed. 

2nd — We assert from reading old dootriuical sermons of our fore- 
fathers who first landed in the May Flower at Plymouth, that they 
believed the Divine Government to be like that of the Fannly Gov- 
ernment, the Church being the legitimate offspring, and heir of the 
Covena'nt of Eedemption and Grace. Christ being heir to all things, 
having overcome death and set down at the right hand of God the 
Father, vrhere he ever liveth to make intercession for his children or 
church, who by his atonement for them, have become heirs to 
Christ. So understood our forefathers religious truth, and so 
founded they this Government, and it is absurd for the laws to be 
executed by judges and lawyers otherwise than as our forefathers 
designed they should be administered. Their covenant, or United 
States Constitution, embraces in itself the marriage covenant as 
much as the g^^ does the bird ; the AVife and husband, like the 
States, become one in interest, and the children become heirs at the 



15 

decease of the two parents, and not at the decease of one parent on- 
ly. The children, like the church, should be interceded for by. the 
mother as the heir of the covenant of marriage, until the laws are 
made throughout the States to conform to that covenant. Herita- 
bly the property should descend from the husband to the wife, and 
vice versa, and from them, at their decease, to their children, and 
not testamentarily, as it now does. The standard of woman should 
be "Union and Liberty, one and inseparable, now and forever." 
One person in two, revolving like the States and like the planets, 
each in its own sovereignty. I assert, and challenge contradiction 
from the most learned in the law, that since the Legislature and 
Congress have refused my petition to keep the marriage covenant of 
my husband and father, which she and others impaired, that the 
civil contract of marriage is no longer binding on the part of wives, 
but the husbands are still bound to their wdves by the civil contract 
in this State. Just so M'ill it be wdth the States if the majority of 
the people elect President Lincoln on the platform that they will 
sustain him in unconstitutional methods to suppress rebellion, the 
Union people of the South can claim protection of the North, or they 
can leave, if they choose, legally. 

I have written, since I visited Washington last April, many let- 
ters to the Judiciary Committee and members of Congress, in which 
I have laid down every point of the law w'ith regard to the National 
Government, and traced the analogy between that of the National 
and Family Government. I have received but three letters in re- 
ply. Neither of them d^ny my theory. But Judge B. and others 
have thereby committed treason against the Constitution of the LTni- 
ted States and against the law of God. 

JANE P. THUESTON. 



I'o the Hon. Judges, tlie Rev. Clergy', the Sovereign Feoxjle and all whom 
it may concern : 

We have asserted, and proved without contradiction from the Hon. 
Judiciary or Grand Jury, that it is treason to the United States and 
the State Constitutions, and to the Commonwealth for them to make 
or execute a Will in violation of the marriage covenant ; that by 
that covenant the wdfe becomes jointly one with the husband in his 
worldly goods and children — especially in my case — and at his death 



16 N 

endowed her for life with it — the children becoming heirs at the 
decease of the two parents. We have thus shown, that the Judge 
who makes his will adverse to his covenant, not only commits trea- 
son, but the Judge of Probate and the lawyer who executes such a 
Will, and the Legislator who makes and substantiates such a law as 
is in violation of it and to the Constitution, alike commit treason 
against it and the law which was recently passed in Congress, pun- 
ishing treason against the National Government, should also here- 
after be enforced against those who commit treason against family 
government, that family government hereafter may become perpet- 
uated as taught by our Lord in St. Mark, 10th chapter, as he de-" 
signed it to be. The Apostle Paul says, '' The wife is bound by ine 
law to her husband so long as he liveth. So, then, if while her 
husband liveth she be married to another man, she shall be called 
an adulteress," — Pomans, 7: 2. Christ says, Mark, 10th, chapter, 
11, " Whosoever shall put away his wife, or if a wife shall put a^\ay 
her husband, and marry another, committeth adultery." Why mock 
God by calling National Fasts, imploring His aid to subdue rebel- 
lion and ignore the rebellion to his law by clinging to it ? Those 
who execute the laws, have taken an oath to support the Constitu- 
tion — which embraces the marriage covenant — and they should be 
holden responsible for the cricie, and for the damages, for impair- 
ing the civil contract, as the ship-master who should refuse to con- 
form to the ship's articles which he had signed, or the carpenter 
who should refuse to perform his written contract which he had 
made. The Judges are the agents of the sovereign people, and 
should be holdeu responsible to the people to keep their covenants, 
as their oath of office designs they should do. Then the people 
would have protection in their wives and families, and in their pro- 
party, (which is not now the case,) from all unreasonable search 
and seizure, and have the inalienable right of acquiring, possessing 
property, and of obtaining safety and happiness as the Constitution 
guarantees, instead of taking, at the death of the husband, the most 
of the estate to settle it, when there are no debts. If the marriage 
contract be broken, and the wife be not the heir of her husband, 
surely the children cannot be his legitimate heirs, but the State 
would take his property at his decease. But what constitutional 
ri^yht has the State to allow illegal, because unconstitutional, Statute 



17 

la\vs to be executed to enrich the State ot her officials, to the detri- 
ment of the commonwealth, and annul the husband's civil claim to 
his wife and children, by thus impairing the obligation of the mar- 
riage contract — particularly in this boasting, christian, liberty-loving 
State, by illegal Statute law, refuse the husband the right to keep 
his civil contract and preserve his family government in unity and 
peace during his life and at his decease ; thereby enslaving the hus- 
band, no less than the wife, to the judiciary of the State — ^^thus vio- 
lating the Constitution and the Union, while the State sends thou- 
sands of her brave and valliant sons to battle for the Union and the 
United States Constitution. To say nothing of the deep professions 
Cf^ the people of hatred of slavery and of rebellion to the National 
Government, they themselves, by Statute laws, have become subjects 
and slaves to the judicitiry, who have assumed and now sustain an 
irresponsible power over the sovereign people. The people are sub- 
ject to the Judge of Probate and the judiciary who, like Hamen of 
old, holds all their property subject to his will in executing his of- 
fice, and the Judiciary Committees wdio make and cause to be exe- 
cuted, for personal gain, unconstitutional, therefore illegal Statute 
laws. Let the Judges and the Judiciary be holden hereafter to the 
parties whom they may injure, as in law, when one party refuses to 
fulfil its executing contract, the other party is entitled to an equiva- 
lent in damages for the direct gains which he would have realized 
from the performance of the contract, and they will cease to break 
marriage contracts and pass a law punishing them for treason 
against the Family Government, destroying it, and scattering es- 
tates, and impoverishing the wddow and the fatherless at the decease 
and at the divorce of the husband, in violation of the Covenant of 
Marriage and the Constitution. 

We have reached the end of civil law. It hath now no dominion 
over a wife, since Judge Barrows has broken the civil contract of 
marriage of my husband. How, then, shall we save family "govern- 
ment ? There is but one way that I can see, since the Legislature 
and Congress refused my petition to preserve the marriage covenant 
as a civil contract, and as no day's man, but a day's woman — one 
who has fulfilled the Jaw- — who is a widow, a mother and a step- 
mother — a daughter — a sister — whose husband was a mariner at sea, 
and who had fulfilled the Statute, even inasmuch as he made at sea, 



18 

and sent to her by the pilot from the Chesapeake Bay, his written 
'Will, which accorded with his marriage contract, and with the Con- 
stitution, which the State officials broke — can fill every position re- 
quired for a mediation ; therefore I coma and offer the Grospel plan. 
By the Covenant of Grace are ye saved, and that not of yourselves ; 
it is the gift of God. Christ has become the end of the law for 
righteousness to every one that believeth. Faith in the Covenant 
of Marriage, which is embodied in the Constitution of the United 
States, and of each State, will alone save the Family and the Na- 
tional Government. That faith is the gift of God. Pray for the 
gift of faith : "Pray if thou canst or canst not speak, but pray with 
faith in Jesus' na^me." "The law is not of faith. Christ hath re- 
deemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us." 
It is not by the lau\ which has been broken, but by the Covenant 
of Grace we shall be eternally saved; and so with the State and 
Federal Statute laws, which have becti broken, w^e cannot save, but 
by the Covenant— the Constitution — the Family and National Gov- 
ernments are saved. — See Eom. 4th chapter, 9th to 16th, and Gal. 
3d chapter, 14 and 15. 

Brethren, I speak after the manner of men. Though it be but a 
man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or ad- 
deth thereto ; and this I say, that the covenant that was confirmed 
before of God, in Christ the law, which was four hundred and -thir- 
ty years after, cannot disannul, that it should make the promise of 
none efi^ect. For if the inheritance be of the law, it is no more of 
promise ; but God gave it. to Abraham by promise. So not by the 
law, but by promise, the husband gives to his wife the inheritance — 
if it be a contract of marriage. — Eorn. 8:17 And if children, then 
heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ to an inherit- 
ance, if so be we suffer with him that we may be also glorified to- 
gether. For I reckon that the sufferings of these present times are 
not to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. 
For a testament is of force after men are dead, otherwise it is of 
no strengfh at all while the testator liveth. — Ex. 12: 11. 

Xt the end of four hundred and thirty years, the selfsame day, 
all the hosts of the Lord went out from the knd of Egypt as by pro- 
mise, or covenant.— Ex. 18th chap. 19 to 28; Gen. 22: 17, 18: 
Deut. 32 : 8. Christ confirmed, in his Sermon on the Mount, and 



19 

at Caiia by a miracle, marriage, as instituted "from the begiiiDing," 
as perpetual: "What God has joined together let not men put 
asunder." And though it be eighteen hundred years since, no man 
can disannul, so that it shall make the promise of none effect. 
"Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my word shall not pass 
away. Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of 
the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall not enter the kingdom of heav- 
en," said Christ, 

lion. E. Bates, Attorney General of the United States, in a letter 
to me, stated that the State of Maine was sovereign : so he, in his 
office, could afford me no aid, if the State of Maine by her Statute 
ia^^'s did enslave the wife or widow. Neither could a Southern State 
prevent this State from enacting such laws ; and evqry State is 
equally sovereign as this State, and stands responsible only to God 
for any law that may be in conflict to His holy law. He that be- 
lievetli is not condemned ; but this is the condemnation that liglit 
has come into the world, and that men loved darkness ratlier than 
light, because their deeds were evil. — John, 2: 19, 20. Woman is 
now redeemed from under the law, since I have suffered the whole 
law and fulfilled it, and by the breaking of it — the Statute law-^-by 
Judge Barrows, and she now comes under favor, more remains, un- 
der the Covenant of the church rite of marriage, to become one with 
her husband, and endowed with his worldly goods, joiiitl}- and 
equally, and in his children, thereby securing to her, peacefully, her 
family and property, to descend at the death of the two parents, to 
the children ; and her children are no longer the children of the 
bond, but of the free wonmn, as by promise. — Gal. 4: 23. See Gen. 
31: 4, and Gen. 22 ; Ex. 22: 10 to 17 ; Heb. 6: 16. Eor men verily 
swear by ihe greater, and an oath is a confirmation ; is to them the 
end of all strife, wherein God willing more abundantly to show unto 
the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsels conflimed it by 
an oath. If it be stolen, he shall make restitution unto the man 
thereof. — Eom. 4: 12 to 19. For the promise that he should be heir 
of the world was not to Abraham, or to his seed through the law, 
but through the righteousness of faith ; for if they which are of the 
law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise, or covenant, made 
of none effect, because the law worketh wrath ; for where no law is, 
there is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be 



20 

by Grace, to the end that the promise might be sure to all the peed. 
Rom. 3: 20. 

Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified, for 
by the law is the knowledge of sin. For all the sovereign people 
of the United States have sinned against the Covenant, or Constitu- 
tion, and have come short of the Glory of God. — See Rom. 12: 6 to 
21 ; Rom. 11; 4 to 8 ; Gal. 4: 22 to 31. For it is written, Abra- 
ham had two sons — one by the bond-maid and the other by the free 
woman. But he of the bond-woman was born of the flesh, but he 
of the free woman was by promise — which things are an allegory — 
for these are the two covenants. — Deut. 3: 1, 2 ; Deut. 32: 8. 

Could inspiration more strikingly represent the condition of fimily 
and national government at the present time, than this allegory ? We 
are no longer the children of the bond-woman, under the law, for 
we have reached the end of the law — the public officers having refused 
to keep the law in my case, iind I have suffered and fulfilled it in ev- 
ery point. We now come to be the children of the free woman, as 
by promise — the children of the Covenant — then heirs. — Rom. 4: 50. 
And we cast out the bond-woman and her son, for the bond-woman 
shall not be heir with the son of the free woman ; and so with the 
States. The revolutionary fethers' Covenant, or Constitution, or 
promise, binds their sons as heirs to their inheritance — the United 
States — and not the children of the bond-woman. 

And the vote of the people of the Territories, on tlieir application 
to become States, sliould decide by the majority, whether they shall 
be free States or otherwise. This will not increase the number of 
slaves, and in time they can be colonized, either in some Territories, 
like the Indian, or in some foreign country. 

JANE P. THURSTOjST. 

Portland, Aug. 9, 1864. 



God's Providences at the present tin^ are wonderfully developing 
the human mind. The Fenian movement is a correspondence, as the 
heir to the inheritance of their Fatherland, with that of the Prince 
of Wales, as the heir of the Covenant of Marriage to the Crown of 
England. The laws in relation to marriage conflict with the Cove- 
nant: one nmst succeed to the Government as the Sovereign Ruler, 
peacefully or by strife, as does tlie other. So Avith the heir of the in- 



21 ' 

heritant^e, by the parents' Mni-riage Covenant, hereafter in this coun- 
try. The children of deceased j'^c^'sons will arise and demand of the 
Judiciary, as heirs of the inheritance of their parents, by tlie Cove- 
naiit of Marriage, as will the sons of the Revolutionary sires, by vir- 
tue of the covenant of their fathers — the Constitution of the United 
States — claim their inheritance bequeathed to them as Sovereign 
Rulers ; and the sons of Africa their fatherland. The same princi- 
ple pervades each alike. In the Christian nation the idea of War 
and Law as a remedy for wrongs, is about as absurd as passing judg- 
ment on others that wdll condemn ourselves. The secession move- 
ment, which we claim to be Treason against the Constitution and the 
Union, as it was aimed as a death-blow to the Federal Government 
— the Union being the life of the Federal Government, it having re- 
ceived its existence therefrom — is like the "Divorce" movement, 
which corresponds to secession, and is Treason against the Consti- 
tution and the Union, inasmuch as it also is aimed as a death-blow 
to the Family Government — the Union being the life of the Family 
Government, it having received its existence tlierefrom. Our Lord 
laid down to his disciples, in St. Mark, 10th chapter, the Constitu- 
tion of Marriage. 

'' It seems in the order of Providence, that individuals, families, 
tribes and nations, should tend, by means of association, to a final 
Unity. A law of mutual attraction, or affinity, first exerting its in- 
fluence upon smaller bodies, draws them by degrees into well-estab- 
lished fehowship, and then continuing its power,' fuses the larger 
bodies into nations ; and nations themselves, stirred by the same 
sleepless energy, are now moving towards that grand system of com- 
bined order, w^hich will complete the general liarmony. */ * * Thus 
has this tendency to Unity predominated over independent sove- 
reignties and states, slowly conducting the pi'ocess of chrystalliza- 
tion, which is constantly going on among the nations." 

The divorce and dower laws of England conflict with the Cove- 
nant of Marriage, and jeapordizes the Crown, unless, during the life 
or her Majesty, (long live Victoria,) the Parliament of EnHand make 
the teaching of Christ, in St. Mark, 10th chapter, and the church 
their Marriage Constitution throughout their domains, law practi- 
cally. ^ 

The unmixed freedraen bear to the Federal Government the rela- 



22 

tion of /o6i^<:?'-children who have attained their majority — having be- 
come of age — or the foster-son whose time has been given him to 
set up business for himself The "mixed" freedmen bear to the 
Federal Government the relation of illegitimate children of rich fa- 
thers and poor mothers. The Statute makes certain kindred, viz: 
the father of the pauper, the illegitimate infant and his mother lia- 
ble, and provides that the town which has incurred expense for the 
relief of them as paupers, may have a remedy against such kindred 
by complaint to the Supreme Court, or otherwise. But the child is 
not the heir to his father's inheritance, as the son of the Covenant of 
Marriage. Nevertheless, the father can recognize and aid him. 

" Answer a fool according to his folly." In other words, attempt 
not to reason with a fool: — "Cast not pearls before swine." He 
could not understand why i')eiyper should not be used for salt in sea- 
soning, if you argued a month ; or the necessity of seizing Jiold of the 
rope thrown to him by a friendly hand, to save him from drowning. 
Therefore should our words to him be few : heed the admonition of 
Holy Writ. Common sense, or understanding, only is requisite to 
save this Republic. The freedmen are not the legitimate children 
and heirs to the inheritance of the Revolutionary fathers, any more 
than was Ishmael heir to the inheritance of his father — Abraham. 
Truth and law are synonomous terms. You cannot bend, warp, or 
change it but for a season. " Silence is the safest response for all 
the contradiction that arises from impertinence, vulgarity, or envy." 

The mixed freedmen, hke Ishmael, can found a Republic similar 
to this in the Eden of the world — Africa — and be instrumental, as 
pioneers and missionaries, through the aid of their brethen, the Isaacs 
of this count] y, with whom they have an affinity, and the unmixed 
freedmau and African, with whom they have common sympathies — 
being a medium between the whites and the blacks, and have been 
raised by the mixture to a higher standard of intelligence, so that 
taking example of our forefatliers who came over from Europe and 
founded this government, they can found, and establish, and perpet- 
uate for themselves, in Africa, a snnilar Republic, and spread there 
the Gospel of Christ; and as missionaries of the American Board, 
be aided in the noble work, and the time and money expended by 
this Government in useless argument be saved and given to aid such 
freedmen as will go with their families to found the Republic. Li- 



23 

beria is open and calling them to come over and help the missiona- 
ries there in civilizmg the people. A college has been established 
there for the young men of Africa, and is in successful operation. 
A trip up the Mediterranean will show you a sight of the natives, 
and the work and necessity of missionaries there. 



Is it not apparent to my readers that secession, persisted in, becomes 
Treason against the Federal Government'? Is it not equally clear, 
that '•Ulii-orces,'"pe7^sistedin,heco\'nQ?> Treason against the Costitu- 
tion or family Government '? If, therefore, the former is punishable 
by temporal death, is not the latter punishable by eternal death ? — 
the unpardonable sin, spoken of in the Holy Scriptures ? 

What is most needed just now, in the United States^ is an Annie, 
the Prophetess, or a Hebrew Deborah, the Boadecia, or Joan of Arc, 
to delivei- it from its imminent peril — who, like a futhful mother, 
applies an antidote to a morbid physical or mental state of her off- 
spring ; change the scene by travel or losing sight of any object that 
distracts or worries the mind, and a vigorous, healthy state is again 
restored. Above all things, pray the Lord to deliver the rulers and 
people from leanness — leanness. What is the difference to the man 
who fancies he has nothing to eat, and cannot procure any, Avhen 
kind friends are constantly presenting it before him, and urging him 
to partake, and the man who actually has nothing to eat, and is out 
of the reach of it on a wreck. Death will ultimately reach both. 
So in this nation, if the people do not arise and assume the reigns of 
Government, and assert the supremacy of the law — the Constitution 
* — like Eli's sons, their sons (their present agents) will destroy the 
Government — National and Family. The effects are apparent ; the 
cause is also. The people, like indulgent parents, have given the 
reigns to their agents, and perhaps, as in tlie case with Eli, it is too 
late to aave the house from destruction ; but an attempt should be 
made by the People, who are the Sovereign Rulers, and whose agents 
the Representatives and Senators are. 

Without Divine aid, enlightening the minds of the masses of the 
people, leading them in the ways of truth and righteousness — into 
the law, moral and civil, which many of tlieir agents reject, it i.^ even 
nov/ too late — too late to be saved. The mothers of the present day 
who have reached the age of fifty years, can remember the strict dis- 



24 

cipline of parents in contrast •\^•itll that of the present time, when-the 
reverse is the order of the day. She might call upon her son — the 
legislator and the judge — and beseech him not to persist in making 
her an Hagarite instead of Sarah — a bond-woman instead of a wife ; 
a woman of the Law, instead of a wile of the Covenant, who should 
say to her husband, in the words of Ruth to Naomi, her mother-in- 
law: " Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following af- 
ter thee ; for whither thou goest I will go ; and where thou lodgest, 
I will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God. 
Where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried ; the Lord 
do so to me, and mine also, if ought but death part thee and me." 
But it is in vain, if she cannot impart to his understanding a hiowledye 
of laic — Civil, and Moral, and Constitutional, that the rank of woman 
— the rank " he gives his mother determines that of himself and that 
of the race." That he himself becomes an Ishmaelite — a son of the 
law, an illegitimate — for he can pervei^t the covenant, and reduce his 
mother to a woman of the law 'II Then, again, the uncertainty of 
laiv in settling estates, as I have proved, is like war: the property 
goes into other hands than the heirs ; in law the Court or Lawyers 
worry to death the parties, and take the principal part of the estate. 
In war, the freedmen, after great destruction of life and estates, took 
the oyster, and the States, North and South, took the shell — almost 
bankruptcy: but it was the fruit of the seed sown, viz: divorces, 
dowers, law-suits, breaking up, before and after the death of the hus- 
band, all fiimily government. 

I told this story to the Legislature of Maine and to the Congress 
of the United States, in person and by letters, before a drop of blood, 
vvas shed, and gave the Legislature of Maine, through Hon. J. A. 
Poor, by the advise of Judge Shepley, a Flan which, if the Judicia- 
ry Committee, to v/hom Hon. Mr. Poor gave it, as he told me, it 
would have prevented the war, and produced harmony and Union. 
What has been gained by the war ? Who is mathematician enough 
to estimate its cost? Take an estimate of the number and value of 
the lives of young men who were killed, at $1000 per annum ; and 
then of their moral worth to the country and their families — educa- 
ted, intellectual and noble as they were — it is too painful to dwell 
upon. What worth is the land without the inhabitants'? If the 
Lord withdraw reason and send leanness upon us, so that the white 



25 

race rank themselves below the black race, may it not be the fruit 
of seed sown by the white race by cherishing cuvy, malice and ha- 
tred towards white brothers, as in a LiAv-suit one party says he had 
rather the lawyers ^\^ould get the -whole estate than his contestant 
brother; so now, rather than have the contestant brother white of 
the South come into the Government, they would prefer to raise the 
hiach over the ivhiies, by giving the freedmen the rijMs and the inher- 
itance of the whites. But here comes another power. The women 
— the wives, the mothers — must now be heard. Listen ! They de- 
mand you, Legislators, Judges and Executors, to go by the Consti- 
tution, to save you from becoming illegitimate sons ! To save you 
your inheritance as heirs of the Covenant of Marriage. Will you 
listen ? Let it not be said, "I have called, and ye refused.^' 

A public document now before me, reads thus. It is signed by 
his Excellency Gov. Cony, approved in Legislature Feb. 7, 1865, 
and signed by Judges, Lawyers and others, making it a law : "Ar- 
ticle IS, sec. 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a 
punishment for crime, w^hereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to 
their jurisdiction." 

By this amendment to the Constitution, every woman and her 
children are legally, by common law, free from involuntary servitude 
to their husbands and fathers. Why ? Because the civil contract 
of marriage gives to the wife and minor children food and raiment, 
according to their condition in life, only as the freedman had, "with 
a do^\er" at his death ; or if personal estate, a Will, or false bills, 
may give (from the wife) the children the whole estate, minus ten 
dollars legac}^, as I have shown in the case of my grand-father with 
my father, his only surviving child, who had dutifully served him 
forty years in the transaction of his business, and by the law-suit 
which wasted the estate and broke the family of my fatlier and of 
my husband. 

The moral law and the Constitution only now binds the wife and 
children. The Constitution is a chart, and compass, like the Bible, 
whose needle points forever true, when I, in my distress, my anchor 
hope, can cast within thy promises. It holds my vessel fast. Safe- 
ly she then at anchor rides, midst blustering winds and surging tides. 

The amendment is exparte ; the representatives of man, not ivo- 



26 

men, — the liiisbands pledge hereafter "no involuntary servitude shall 
exist in the United States ;" hence the end of the civil contract stat- 
ute law of marriage is reached. The Moral, and Constitutional, and 
Church Covenant still binding the wife and children to love, honor 
and obey husband and parents. 



Art thou a master in Israel and knowest not these things ? What 
things ? Whereof we have been writing. The writings have gone 
forth to the Legislatures, to Congress, to the army, and to the peo- 
ple, through the daily and weekly papers, through pamphlets, 
through resolutions offered by me to the religious associations and 
conventions of the different religious sects, and to the various offi- 
cials of Government, by personal and written statements to them, 
on the various points herein stated, with documentary proof offered 
on each point ; yet we find, notwithstanding Ave have labored with 
unremitting zeal for six years to persuade the people to adhere in- 
violably to the oath of allegiance to the covenant or Constitution en- 
tered into by the fathers — which oath is the basis on which rests 
this Eepublic — and spent freely for advertising and publishing these 
'sentiments, and visiting the Capitols of our State and of the United 
States, aud conversed freely with their officials, we find on our re- 
turn from the State Capitol, a correspondent of the Daily Press, an 
official of the State, Assistant Secretary Cochrane, as I was informed 
by the editor, with the signature of Wanderer — applicable name, I 
think — declares that I have attempted for six yeare to change laws 
that are as unchangeable as the fixed stars. And although I have 
sought, through several different mediums, to draw from him wliat 
law I have sought to change, and whether it was not to confirm the 
law — the Constitution of the State and of the United States — I had 
sought to conform the Statute law to, in order to confirm the Constitu- 
tion, and put several other questions bearing on his article in the 
Daily Press, of Jan'y 31st, and offered him a reward of ten dollars 
for his answer to the following questions : Did Hon. Warren H. 
Yinton say, or not, in the State Library, in the presence and hearing 
of the State Librarian, and the Speaker of the House, and others, 
that he was one of tlie Judiciary Committe of 18C2, to whom the 
Legislature, through Hon. J. A. Peters, presented my petition for 
indemnity for the mal-administration of the estate of my husband ? 



27 

Did he say, or did he not, that the Judge did me injustice? Did 
he say, or not, that he signed a petition to Gov. Cobiirn, while my 
complaint was pending before the Committee, for Governor Cobnrn 
to put Judge Barrows on the Bench of the Supreme Judicial Court?" 
— a vacancy having been made by the resignation of Judge Edward 
Fox, a relative of Judge Barrows — perhaps I might guess, purpose- 
ly. I have been unable to obtain a reply. I told him it had be- 
come a public document, and demanded public answers, and desired 
that his answers be certified to before a Justice of the Peace, and 
witnessed by the State Librarian and the Speaker of the House, who 
were present at the colloquy. 

The following letters may instruct him, AYanderer's ignorance — 
if ignorance it were — was unpardonable, inasmuch as he has access 
to the State Library, which contains my pamphlets, which the State 
has had bound together, and as the Representative from Portland, 
(Gen. S.) was there to inform him concerning my statements, as his 
father was my Attorney or Agent to settle my husband's estate and 
my mother's estate, which the General had disarranged by serving 
us — he being cognizant of all. 

The condition of the slave was held up by me as a minor for the 
Government, to show, that while involuntary service, as wedded in 
the United States Constitution, had been practical in ail the States, 
towards the voluntary contract of \iie-service of the white wedded 
wife, the black slave of the master, and the white v/ife of the hus- 
band alike, having food and raiment according to the condition in 
life of the master — each having no representation or legal claim to 
their children, and alike subject to the clause of being " delivered 
upon requisition." Though it cannot be said that the wife's con- 
tract of marriage was voluntary servitude — it would be illegal, and 
therefore void ; there would bo no basis for the civil contract to rest 
upon, and a violation of the moral law. It would destroy marriage 
as a civil contract, and as a divine ordinance, for women thus to 
contract. It may be equally questionable, whether the framers of 
the Constitution could legally deliver up persons held to " involun- 
tary service ;" but as their Bond or Constitution being a contract of 
the States, had been adopted, it held their sons, North and South, 
unless it were changed according to the method prescribed by the 
Constitution, inasmuch as they took an oath to be governed by it 



28 

as executors of the Government ; or the slaves themselves rising, 
demand the change, as I claim for the women, the wives and the 
children, as heirs and joint heirs to. the husband and father's inher- 
itance ; so that in passing judgment, it falls upon the Judiciary ; for 
any violation of the Constitution — that Constitution being a contract 
which embraces the marriage contract, and every other contract or 
covenant. Deeds and titles of all descriptions would be void if you 
can impair the obligation of the contract which our fathers entered 
into, and gave their Bond or Constitution to guarantee. How can 
my land be taken, and I be taxed without representation ? Impos- 
sible ! I have sought for women, and for freedmen, protection from 
the Goverment, as the Indian has it. I asked nothing but what 
will serve the best intei est of all the people. Voting will not secure 
justice, neither will the Courts, if the people are corrupt. Put jus- 
tice to the line and judgment to the plummet, and the work is com- 
pleted — the Constitution is thus restored. 



Augusta, July 25, 18G1. 
Mrs. Jane F. Thurston — 

Madam : — Your letter is received. You will permit me to answer 
you that you are mistaken in believing that the Executive has juris- 
diction over any mal- administration of your deceased husband's es- 
tate, and to repeat, that it is a subject purely for judicial investiga- 
tion. Yery respectfully, 

Your ob't Serv't, 

I. WASHBUEN, A. 



Portland, Feb. 1st, 18G5. 
Hon. N. a. Paewell, U. S. S. 

jSVr ; — I send you to-day, in addition to those four documents I 
sent you yesterday, the enclosed, to show you that I have been 
through every process known in the Government for indemnity for 
mal-administration, or the rebellion of Judge Barrows to the Gov- 
ernment, so that you may use it as proof that this State has failed 
of keeping its faith to her citizens, or bring it forth in such manner 
as you may deem it necessary. Please to return all my papers when 
you are done with them, by mail, and send me the amount of my 
claim, and I will forever pray, &c. 

Yery respectfully, JANE P. THURSTON. 



29 . 

Augusta, Feb. 1, 1863. 
Bear Madam : — I return your payers, as requested. We have pe- 
rused them, but me cannot very well settle any questions till Mr. 
Smith recovers and returns. 

Yours truly, J. A. PETEES. 



Augusta, Gth Feb., 1863. 
Mes. Jane P. Tuukston, Portland, Me. 

Jiy Dear Iladam : — Yours is received. Your petition doesn't need 
to be formally presented. All the papers are considered as being 
before the Judiciary Committee. I would recommend you to call 
on the Hon. L. D. M. Sweat, of Portland, and consult with him in 
reference to your matters, in case you should need his services be- 
fore Congress. Yours, truly, 

. J. A. PETEES. 



Augusta, Feb. 15, 1862. 



Dear 3Iadam : — Yours is received. Please confer with Mr. Vinton, 
who has now gone home, and you will find him on inquiry at his 
office in Portland. Yours, truly, 

J. A. PETEES. 



Augusta, 16th Feb., 1863. 
Mrs. Jane P. Thurston : '■ - ' 

Your Probate Documents are all received. Don't come here un- 
less we send for you. It will be an unwarrantable enpense. You'll 
hear from us in due time. Y^ours, truly, 

J A. PETEES. 



Augusta, 20th Feb., 1863. 
Mrs. Thurston : 

Your documents are all received. Do not go to any expense of 
any kind. When we get through, I will notify you all about it. 

Yours, truly, J. A. PETEES. 



Bangoe, March 27, 1863. 
Mrs. Thurston : — The Committee decided in your case, that noth- 
ing could be done about it. You must be quiet, and drop the mat- 



. 30 

ter, or you will go crazy. Mr. Sjiiitli took your valise, or will tell 
you who has got it. It may have .been some one of the Portland 
Representatives. You must do just as Mr. Smith tells you, or you 
will go to the Devil. He is your friend. 

Yours, trul>, J. A. PETEES. 



PoETLAND, April 1, 1863. 
Hon. Mr. Peters : I cannot comprehend your letter of the 27th 
ult. You promised me, as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, 
that if I would leave my business with your honorable body, that I 
should receive justice at your hands, viz : indemnification for the 
loss of my estate, or you would license me to practice law, so that I 
could be enabled to support myself. I thank you for your advice 
" to drop the matter, or you will go crazy;" but I think it is not 
now needed, as I still retain my reason, after suffering intense anx- 
iety since last December, to hear the result of the deliberations of 
so honorable a body of men, whether you will sustain the Family 
Government, by keeping my husband's covenant, which the Judge 
of Probate, \Vm. G. Barrows, broke. I supposed you were all dis- 
interested Union men, and that I had nothing to fear at your hands. 
Poor Henrietta ! she wept as though her heart would break, when 
she found you were not for indemnification. I found it difficult to 
comfort her. But the Lord, who has carried me, like Job, through 
all trials, still preserved me, peaceful and calm. I can only say, in 
the words of Isaiah, (27 : 11,) " It is a people of no understanding ; 
therefore he that made them, will not have mercy on them. I have 
called and ye refused," &c. As to my papers, I took them from Mr. 
Blake, messenger of the Senate. He said you told him you " had 
no time to act in my case." Your remark for me to " do just as 
Mr. Smith tells you, or you will go the Devil. He is your friend," 
I cannot tell what to make of. At first I supposed you had reached 
that point which you had warned me against, viz : cra^y. The idea 
of doing as any person might dictate, to keep me from going to the 
Devil, seems ludicrous, self reliant as I have beer?, through flood, 
flame and fire — I think I shall be able to stand awhile longer — in- 
deed as long as I lean on the Almighty Arm of Jehovah. You have 
but little idea of the sufferings a woman can endure. Since August 
1859, I have buried a beautiful boy of two years — the angel of the 



31 

household, my husband, a man of sterling integrity, intelligence and 
enterprise, and an aged mother of rare excellence, and my precious 
daughter Abbie Jane, whom you saw last year at Augusta, and a 
step-son aged 18 years, in 1858 ; and Henrietta has been to all ap- 
pearance at death's door. 

Then the Judge of Probate has stripped me of my property and 
step-sons, and now, by some process best knoAvn to yourselves, 
the Judge of Probate has got reprieval from all punishment — 
indeed, he has been rewarded. I understand Mr. S. has gone to 
New York, and Mr. Kingsbury is too busy to answer my inquiries ; 
will you, therefore, please answer me whether I shall pay an illegal 
tax on the "estate of my husband" to save my own land being giv- 
en away ? To cover the sin of Mr. Trask ? Shall I annually pay 
more tax than I receive of income ? Shall I pay George and Charles 
the balance of Abbie Jane's personal estate? Have I been freed 
from my bonds as guardian ? Please return my letters to the Hon. 
J. Committee by mail, as they were not returned with my papers. 
I do not claim a friend on earth unless I may claim you as such, and 
if Mr. S. had been such and assisted you, I should think you would 
have been able to release me from bondage, and to have given me 
Indemnification, and I had never seen or spoken with Mr. S. until 
I reques^d him to take my petition, which he took and presented 
to you and which you had referred to the J. Committee, and he 
wrote me the following letter. 

Respectfully, JANE P. THURSTON. 



Augusta, January IG, 18G3. 
Mrs. Jane P. Thurston. 

Madam : — Since my arrival here I have looked over your petition 
and find it embodies grave charges of impeachment of the Judge of 
Probate of Cumberland County, and I have deemed it utterly use- 
less for you to present it, unless you can furnish documentary evi- 
dence of your own and have other persons to convict the Judge of 
designed wrong and wilful oppression of you, resulting in a denial 
of your rights, in case, too, where you could not protect yourself by 
an appeal. 

If, as you say, Judge Shepley can and will unite with you in tes- 
tifying the facts stated by you, and you can further show you could 



32 

not have protected yourself by an appeal from Judge Barrows* or- 
ders, your way of redress may be clear, so far as the Judge of Pro- 
bate is implicated. But even then it is not a case where the State 
would assume any indemnity of your loss. 

Under the circumstances as disclosed by you, I do not think it 
would be right, you being a citizen of Portland, and I not being a 
Representative of that city, to volunteer my services — but they 
should be performed by one of the Representatives of the city of 
Portland. I Avill, in case you furnish the requisite testimony to 
make out even the fair appeafance of a case, help any member of the 
Legislature from Portland, in securing you a full hearing. That 
you may pur&ue this course, I herewith return your papers, and re- 
commend you to do as above suggested. 

Very respectfully your obedient servant, S. 



Augusta, March IG, 1863. 
Mrs. Jane P. Tiiusxox, Portland. 

Dear Madam. : — Here is your proposition to settle the Tebellion, 
which you wished returned. That comes rather within the powers 
of Congress, than a State. I don't know as we need attend to Bar- 
rows' case any longer, inasmuch as he has been taken from the Judge 
of Probateship. The Governor had you in mind probably in mak- 
ing the change. Yours truly, 

J. A. PETERS. 

Bangor, March 29, 18G2. 
Dear Madam :^r^ 

The Messenger gave your valise to Mr. Kingsbury I think — at all 
events to one of the Portland Representatives. The Legislature 
refused to aid you, and I cannot. So you must, like a good christian, 
abide by it. 

Col. Sweat of Portland, who was a member of the Senate, will 
give you all information, if you will call on him. 

Yours trulv, J. A. PETERS. 



To the Hon. Committee on Claims : 

I have consulted lawyers in Portland and Boston, and have been 
told by them what course to pursue. Please to return this and other 
letters when you finish my case. I have attested copies from pro- 



bate court of the admiuistration of my husband's estate, which 1 can 
send to }'oa, if you desire them. My case ha? now taken the right 
direction. 



Bangoe, April 4, 18G3. 
Mrs. Thurston: — 

Yours is received, dated April 1. There is no one who would aid 
you more than I would, if I could, or who has more sympathy for 
you. But your unreasonableness consists in this : You won't take 
good advice unless it precisely suits you, and you won't abide by de- 
cisions when made. Now the committee decided that they could 
do nothing at all after Mr. Barrows ceased to be a Probate Judge. 
You must abide by that decision if you mean to be a sensible and 
law abiding woman, which I know you are. There must be some 
end to eases, and there never would be if we do not abide by de- 
cisions when made, whether right or wrong. Now for advice. Go 
to some good Portland lawyer about matters pertaining to your es- 
tate, and abide by whatever advice he may give you, and you will 
be wise, let the consequences be what they may. What is the whole 
world to you if you uselessly wear out your soul in trouble about it? 

You can practice law as much as you please. I am at a distance 
from you and cannot correspond any more with you. It would be 
useless. Yours truly, 

J. A. PETERS. 



PoTRLAND, April 6, 18G3. 
lion. J. A. Pders : — 

Yours of the 4th inst. was duly received. You write that a de- 
cision adverse to my petition w^as made by the Judiciary Committee. 
Did the I^egislature make the same decision? The Messenger of 
the Senate told me that you said you had no time to act upon it. 

Where are my letters to the Hon. J. Committee, .which I request- 
ed you to return with my valise of papers, and my petition for li- 
cense to practice law. 

I have spent nearly all my time this winter writing those letters, 
and have paid the postage on them. Please return them to me by 
mail and I will send you as many postage stamps as you please upon 
them, and pay you for your trouble if you request it. 

Yours respectfully, J. P. T. 



34 

Bangor, April 12, 1863. 

J^rs. Thw^stan: — 

Yours of April 6, 1863, is received. I havn't a paper of yours 
of any description. Your letters were not kept. 

Yours truly, J. A. PETERS. 



AuGU&TA, March 18, 1864. 
Mrs. Thurstoi^. 

Madam: — The papers handed me by Mr. Drummond from you, to 
lay before the Military Committee, I return to you byG. W. Wood- 
mau, Esq. 

Inasmuch as the matter has once been reported upon from a com- 
mittee of the Legislature, and upon consultation with members of 
the Military Committee, it is not deemed advisable to attempt to 
bring the matter before the Legislature again at this session, as it 
probably would be regarded as out of order, for the reasons stated. 
Respectfully yours, S. W. LARRABEE. 



Washington, Jan. 26, 1865. 
My Dear Madam : — Your letter enclosing your papers came to hand 
and I wish to enquire whether you Avish me to return your papers 
when I get done with them. 

Yours 'truly, N. A. FAR WELL. 



Portland, Oct. 25, 1865. 
To his Excellp:ncy, Gov. Cony. 

Dear Sir : — It is known to your Excellency that I have labored 
with the TiHiEE independent, united departments of Government, 
viz : the Legislature, the Judiciary, and the Executive, for Indem- 
nity for a breach of the civil contract of marriag-e of my deceased 
husband, by the Judge of Probate of the County of Cumberland, 
of the State of Maine, Hon. Wm. G. Barrows, in violation of the 
Constitution and in violation of the Statute Law of Maine, viz. : 
"a mariner at sea may dispose of personal estate regardless of the 
previous chapters." See Revised Statutes of Maine. I gave 
Judge BaiTOws written evidence that by a Will, my husband had 
given the disposal of his and my own personal estate, which were 
inseparably united, to me, and had appointed me his administratrix, 



35 

while at sea on his voyage to London. His ivill accorded with his 
contract of marriage^ viz. : Mother, as he termed me, when he gave 
possession of his keys, and of his children. " I give you all," and 
subsequently repeated, *' I give you all, let us draw together and 
save something for our old age." My protest, or petition, was pre- 
sented to the Legislature in 1862 and 1863, by Senators Smart and 
Peters, and was referred to the Judiciary Committee, before whom 
I testified and proved the charge which I had made of mal-adminis- 
tration, and that the marriage contract of my husband had been im- 
paired by Judge Barrows. Rev. Dr. , a clergyman of this city, 

informed me yesterday that the Governor of this State, and not the 
Legislature, as in Massachusetts, in virtue ^f the office of ordained 
clergymen, gives the license to marry parties. Consequently your 
Excellency, as Governor of this State, will find that it devolves on 
you to see that I am indemnified for the breach of the civil contv%t of 
marriage of my husband by Judge Barrows, or it will be unnecessary 
for parties of married women to apply to the court for divorces, 
while at the same time their husbands are not free from their mar- 
riage vows, and their wives are free from their husbands by the law^ 
and are not accountable to the law. Therefore, I need only otfer 
my petition to your Excellency, to be assured of indemnity for a 
breach of the civil contract of marriage of my husband. 

Very respectfully, JANE P. THURSTON. 



To Jiis Excellency, Governor Cony : — 

Respectfully prays the undersigned for indemnity for the breach of 
the civil contract of marriage, and other mal-administration of the 
estate of Henry Thurston, master mariner, deceased, by the Judge 
of Probate, Hon. Wm. G. Barrows. 

JANE P. THURSTON, 

Widow and Guardian of Henry Thurston's minor children, Hen- 
rietta M. Thurston and Abbie Jane Thurston, deceased, 18G2. 

P. S. For a breach of the civil contract of marriage, Judge Bar- 
rows is liable for damages to the Executive only, as the Executive 
gives the licences for marriages, and are sworn to execute the laws, 
through officials, according to the Constitution, and consequently to 
your Excellency alone I must apply for my indemnification. It may 
be that all of the Judiciary and other friends of Judge Barrows, who 



fiidecT him to escape from justice from the Legislature, while his case 
Avas peDcliiig before tiieiii, and the charges had been proved against 
him, and acknowiedged by tlie Judiciary Committee, as I can prove 
by Hon. ]Mr. Peters' lelters to me, by removing him from the Judge- 
ship of Probate, by recommending him to Gov. Cobum for the va- 
cancy made by his relative, Judge Edward Fox, as Judge of the S. 
J. Court, are holden, also, with Judge Barrows, for the damages of 
violating an executory contract to your Excellency. You, my dear 
sir, are the best judge of the lav/ in relation to this matter of im- 
pliQating the friends and aiders of Judge Barrows in his guilt, or 
whether they are liable to pay, also, damages to your Excellency. 

From your Excellency I must receive indemnity, or we have no 
marriage in the State of Maine, and that is a violation of the moral 
law, and agamst the Commonwealth, to whom the executors of the 
govwnment are responsible and liable for damages, although the 
State cannot be sued for a breach of the contract of marriage. I 
presume the officials of the State can be sued for it, if they will not 
settle the damages v^'ith your Excellency without being sued. The 
bark E. A. K.'s tvro voyages were not settled, nor the voyages of th e 
bark Nelson Place to Montivedio and back to New York, were nev- 
er settled by the administrator, and only a slicivi settlement of N. P.'s 
last voyage to JMarseilles and back to New York, for the administra- 
tor had never the books, and paid us nothing for her freight out of 
$3,000 and $2,550 back, as per charter of the bark by my hus- 
band. 

We have now 710 maiTiage in tiris State. No clergyman or magis- 
trate can take God to witness that he marries parties after God's 
holy ordinance, viz. : "To be no more twain, but one flesh," one 
interest, or that he marries tliem after the law of the State, since 
Judge Barrows has literally broken it as a civil contract. I must 
say that the government has been slow of heart to believe all that 
Christ and the prophets and apostlcb have spoken on this subject, as 
I have held up their words to tliem. I have labored for four years 
with the government, personally and by my writings, apparently in 
vain ; but truth must prevail ultimately, I know, so I persevere. — 
"Our Constitution has wisely distributed the government into 
i^Ared distmct and independent departments," says Jefferson. "To 
each of these it belongs to administer law within its separate juris- 



37 

diction. The Judiciary in cases meuni and teum, and of public 
crimes ; the Executive as to laws executive in their nature ; the Leg- 
islature in various cases which belong to itself, and in the important 
function of amending and adding to the system." 

It is written that "a word to the wise is sufficient;" can I add 
one more word by protest or of petition to your Excellency, to move 
your compassion or love of justice, in my behalf, and that of my lit- 
tle invalid daughter, who is now debarred of many of the comforts 
of life ? I hope you will answer this letter of appeal immediately, 
for I claim for myself and child the protection of the State, whose 
children we certainly are, and whose executive and fatherly care we 
cast ourselves upon, since, as the guardian of my minor child, no 
other source of protection from injustice is left open to me. 

J. P. T. 



Washingtox, Jan. 18, 18G5. 
Mrs. Thurston: — 

Yours of the loth came to me this morning, and I reply, Congress 
has no jurisdiction over matters of this kind ; if you have been 
wronged it has not been under the law of Congress, but of the State 
of Maine. But you have so long sought redress and don't succeed, 
I fear you will spend more than you will obtain. I sympathise with 
you, but don't see any chance to aid you here. 

Youis truly, N. A. FARWELL. 



Washington, Feb. 24, 1865. 
Jane P. Thukston. 

Madam : — Yours of the 22d came to hand. Congress will adjourn 
in one week and you will not be able to accomplish anything by 
coming here. Yours truly, 

X. A. FARWELL. 



The Hon. Judges can see by the report and address of the mayor 
and others of 1865, at page 91, Appendix, that the rate of taxation 
of 1864, was $20,80 on $1000; that the rate of taxation in 1851, 
was $G 10 on $1000. The Hon. Judges will see by t\iQ tax bill of 
the latter date, that I was taxed $6 10 for the whole lot, six and a 
half acres, w^iile the tax bill for the last year will show that I am 



38 

taxed four times that amount on the whole lot, to correspond with 
the increase of taxes, as the valuation of estate shows, on page 91. 
The city has not made Turner street, and it remains a pasture in 
common; and for the years 1860-1-2-3-4, I received not a cent of 
income from the land. This year Mr. Black came to me and said, 
Moses Gould let him the land the previous year, and told him he 
could have the pasture this year — that I had some interest in the 
land, and he would pay me ten dollars for a receipt for this summer, 
to pasture a cow, which I took and receipted for. I am taxed as 
you perceive for the whole lot, while the Assessors' plan says for 
half acre. My brother, as guardian for brother S.'s children, is tax- 
ed about twenty-five dollars, Mr. Lord told me, and Mr. Gould has 
had the whole income since the death of my husband in 18G0. The 
city sold to Richardson, in 1860, one-fifth of the whole lot, which 
the Assessor, as usual assessed to my husband's estate — alleging that 
it belonged to me, although the tax had been paid and settled at 
Probate Court by the Administrator, Mr. Trask, as his first account 
will show. I had requested the Assessors to make a separate tax 
bill, but they declined, having made up the tax for the estate of my 
husband, and included the tax on the whole land to him, and not to 
me separately. The Collector, Mr. Lord, told me he should deliver 
the Deed to Mr. Richardson, one of the City Council, if I did not 
pay the taxes — which had been paid — and for which the Assessors 
had made to me no assessment. So I gave Judge Shepley the money 
and he 'paid $120.00 for tax which the Judge told them it was illegal 
for them to take. The conscience of Mr. Richardson was aftected 
to the amount of five dollars, which he voluntarily returned to Judge 
S., and Mr. Lord returned 2i portion of the money, which he took of 
Judge S. for the taxes, to me, as his bill will show. 

Respectfully, J. P. THURSTON". 

July 21st, 1865. 

Record.— S. J. C. Docket, Jan y Term, 1865, p. 344. 

Jane P. Thukston, App't, vs. Crry of Pokti.and. 

A. Merrill. Dru.mmond. 

26th d. — App't waives all objection to Justice presiding. Parties 
consent to submit case to a Jury of eleven. Jury fee paid. Jere- 
miah Parker chosen foreman. Verdict for Deft. 30th d. — sd. ver- 
dict. 32d d. — Judgment for Deft., without costs. 



S9 

PoETLAND, May 11th, 1865. 
Hon. J. A. Peters^ Attorney General of the State of Jlaine : 

SiK : — lu violation of the Covenant of the State of Maine, which 
reads, in Article 1, Section 20th or 21st, " That private property- 
shall not be taken for public uses, without Just com.pensation, nor with 7 
out the public exigencies require it,^^ the City Government of Portland, 
(by consent of the S. J. "Court, Feb. Term of 1865,) have taken 
(23,000) twenty-three thousand square feet of land from me without 
ant/ consideration, for a public street, called "East Commercial Street," 
at the foot of Turner Street, (so called, but not yet made,) which cuts 
it at right angles, and adjoining another location of six rods in width, 
through the center of ivhich the rails of the Atlantic and St. Lawre7ice Rail- 
road, uhich was taJcen from nnj land in 1848, thus taking eleven rods 
of the whole water from me, without a cent of compensation, and 
without the public exigencies requiring it. You, Sir, will take such 
action as the case requires — the District Attorney having refused 
duty on my entering complaint to him. 

JANE P. THUESTON. 



PoiiTLAND, July 22, 1865. 
Hex. J. A. Pett.rs, Attorney General, or to whom it may concern : 

Gentlemen : — With a consciousness of truth and right, I beg to 
plead my own cause. The Legislature of 1862, as you, as one of the 
Judiciary Committee, informed me, on my petition, having given 
their consent to honor me with the privilege of becoming an Honor- 
ary member of the Bar, with the rights and privileges of members of 
the Bar, and all members of the Bar having refused to take this 
case. The first question in the case, which I wish to bring up be- 
fore the Hon. Law Court is, Whether the Civil Contract of my hus- 
band, being impaired by the Judge of Probate, and confirmed by the 
Legislature, gives me the right to rescind the Marriage Contract, and 
to claim damages of the State of Maine to the amount which I 
should have received had the Marriage (-ontract of my husband 
been kept by the Court of Probate ? 

2d Question. Would my husband's children be legitimately en- 
titled to estate from their father, if the Contract of Marriage is im- 
paired by the Court and confirmed by the State of Maine ? Or 
would the State be held for damages to me, as one of the Common- 



40 

wealth, for impairing the obligation of the contract of the State 
Constitution, which declares that the Legislature shall pass no law 
impairing the obligation of contracts, and that the Judges shall be 
• governed by the Constitution, any State or '-'Statute law'^ to the con- 
trary notwithstanding. 

3d Question. Would the State of Maine or the City of Portland, 
as in the latter clause of the 2d Question, for impairing the contract 
of the State of Maine in Article 1, Section 20 or 21, for taking 
23,000 square feet of land, besides taking Turner Street, three rods 
wide, from Merrill Street to the Bay shore, and the Promenade, without any 
comyensatton, and increasing the tax, without malcing Turner Street, these 
fourteen years, be holden for damages. 

4th Question. My parents gave me a Warrantee Deed of six and 
a half acres of land on Munjoy Hill, and took a note for $800. But 
my parents talked over, in my presence, making provision for me,, 
being their only single daughter, and the only child at home ; and my 
father said a Deed T>^as stronger than a Will ; and I had assisted my 
parents in various ways. I did their writing, their reading, sewing, 
&c., &c. Besides, I taught school, and spent the money for them 
as well as for myself. At the death of my father, in 1848, I gave 
the conditional Deed and joint Bond, as by contract with my sister 
Dockray, and fulfilled it, for Mrs. Dockray to give mother, by the 
contract on the second part, the life lease to the homestead, on which 
her husband had a claim, having advanced to my father $700, and 
paid on the homestead $300 more — making $1000 — and taken a 
Deed, and promised to return a Bond to my father, which he had 
failed to do. And my sister, Mrs. D., by power of Attorney, in the 
absence of her husband, proposed the contract oi ^Win^ moih^QV the 
life lease, if for me, I would give the joint Bond to my brothers and 
sisters, through my sister, Mrs. Hersey, of Mass., who bought the 
life'^ease or Bond for mother, which Wm. Boyd, (who is one of the 
Assessors of Portland this year,) had drawn up, and made the re-, 
quest of me. I told my sister H. to make one or two alterations in 
the life lease, and I would think of it. Sister II. returned with a 
second life lease, or Bond, drawn up by Wm. Boyd, and I assented 
to give the joint Bond to my brothers and sisters, and they and my 
husband went to the office of W^m. Boyd, who was the City Clerk 
then, and had the joint Bond and Deed from sister D. written, and 



41 

my husband brouglit them home to me, and said Monday morning 
my sisters had set to sign them. I enquired why sister D. should 
offer me a Deed, when I owned the land by Warrantee from father 
and mother. Of course, if she owned a rifjM in the land, of which 
I had a Warrantee Deed, why, the others would all have the same 
right. Why, then, ask for a Bond, when, if she owned it, she could 
give her sixth to the others. Wh}^, the fact was, I told my brother 
what my father said on his death bed, when 1 asked him if I should 
record a deed which I had voluntarily written before my marriage, 
and which he had never accepted ; and my father told me, No, Jane, 
it belongs to you ; perhaps you may lease it for the benefit of j'our 
mother her life time ; and my brother told her what I told him. 

What other valuable consideration, beside the Deed, does sister 
Dockray allude to in this joint Bond? I asked of my husband. 
''^Whj, the life lease, or Bond, to your mother, I mppose,^'' he replied. 
*'■'■ You copy it, and leave ' other valuable considerations ' out of it ; 
and the valuable consideration was the life lease in the homestead 
to your mother, not to us, the consideration is made. I will take it, 
Monday morning, when we meet to sign the papers, and let them 
take or leave it." 

The only consideration given, was the life lease, for Mrs. D. had 
no title to my land, and Dockray broke that contract when*he allowed 
his son to put a shop on the homestead lot of land, in 1858-9, and 
the consideration to me would have been insufficient to hind me to the 
contract; hut filial love to mother, and her life lease of the homestead ivas 
sufficient to hind the contract. 

It appears that Mrs. D. was busy, and sent a note of instruction 
to Mr. Boj;d, and the papers were signed, and mother's Bond record- 
ed hy Wm. Boyd, on the City Records, and when Mr. Boyd took my 
joint Bond to Mrs. D. and she kept the joint Bond, hence arose, 
probably;, the fact that Mrs. D. never came to see me as she prom- 
ised, and I was confined by sickness shortly after, and mother went 
to Baltimore, Md. So I was ignorant of the cause of the hardness 
she entertained towards me for Mr. Boyd's doing different from her 
wishes, as I conjecture now. 

After Capt. D. sued us, (1852,) Wm. Boyd asked me for the joint 
Bond, and said it was his property — that he received no pay for 
tvriting it, &c. I told him that my counsellor, Mr. John Eand, had 



42 

it then in his possession ; and when I told Mr. Rand, he said, "send 
hiui to me for it," — speaking as though he -s'v^ould never give it to 
him. 

By Mr. Band's default, commissioners were appointed by the S. J. 
Court to set off my land to Moses Goidd, that the Court of Equity deci- 
ded belonged to me ; and I Avas holden by Bond to deed to my broth- 
ers, and one conditional Deed to my sister H. Is the land mine or 
Moses Gould's? 

. 5th (Question. Have I any right in the homestead ? And as the 
parties broke the contract, would they have had any claim to the 
land, which I gave the joint Bond and conditional draft for ? And 
are the parties and John E,and, my Attorney, holden to me for dam- 
ages, for the time the land has been laid waste ? 

"Wm. Boyd witnessed falsely and deliberately, when he testified 
under oath, in the Court of Equity, that my sister Dockray and my- 
self held conversations, in his jyresence and hearing, respecting the landy# 
hefo7^e the Deeds and Bonds were drawn up hj him, for I can testify, and 
have testified under oath, that Mrs. Dockray and vny^&li spoke not a icord 
on the siihject in his presence — for she was affronted, and had not spolcen 
to me on that or any suhj'ed, in his or any person'' s presence, for mmiths — 
and it was through my sister Hersey the business was transacted, 
my sister Dockray having taken mother to Boston and brought ipy 
sister H. down to Portland for that purpose. 

Yery respectfully, JANE P. THUESTON. 



The City Building comes last, though not least. The law decid- 
ed years ago, that no title (to Moses Plummer, Sen., my honored 
grandfather's property,) was ever vested in Asa Ficlcett, from the fact 
that the Executor did not comply with the Will and sell the estate, so 
that the Jail lot ivoidd revert hade to the heirs, ajid the county building 
lot, on the corner of Myrtle and Congress Streets, which was leased 
to the County, is not outlawed. J. P. T. 



Have the United States, or in other words, have all the other 
States in the Union, besides the State of Maine, worked attainder of 
treason, so that heritable blood ceases to be transmitted therein by 
the impairing of the civil contract of marriage of my husband, and 
thereby reaching the end of the civil law by the United States Gov- 



43 

ernment refusing to repair the damages, on m^^ representation to the 
Judiciary Committee of Congress ? If so, why^not fall back on the 
Covenant of Marriage as taugld hy Christ in Matt, 5 and St. Mark 10 : 
2-12, and forgive the past,, and give remission for the sin, and re- 
pent therefor. If that is the only remedy, why not immediately ap- 
ply the remedy to the Nation ? The same rule applies to my broth- 
ers and sisters, as to my children. If the Covenant, which my pa- 
rents, by a warrantee deed made with me, and which I, by the consent 
of my mother, made for my mother's benefit, made a contract with 
my sister Dockray, that by hev giving mother a life lease or oond of the 
homestead, I would divide my IdiXidi jointly hy hond to 4-5 when brok- 
en by these parties, through Counsellor Eand, does not break up and 
destroy the Contract made, and thereby cut them off in the land, in 
two ways, viz : As the heirs of the Covenant of Marriage, thej? having 
destroyed their parents' Covenant of Marriage. 2d — By breaking 
the Contract between Mrs. Dockray and myself, in the joint bond 
which I gave. I kept the contract on my part. J. P. T. 



PoKTLAND, July 20, 1865. 
Hon. Attonis'ey General Petees, 

Sir : — You gave me $5 on account, and promised to consult and 
settle justly with me the lalance of the account for 23,000 square feet 
of land taken for public uses, from me, without just compensation, 
in violation of Article 1, Section 20 of the Constitution of the State 
of Maine. I am greatly in need of money, having spent my little 
personal estate in defending myself in a suit with the City for taking 
my land. Will you, Sir, now settle the account wdth me. 

Yery respectfully, JANE P. THUESTON. 



Honorable Ciiif:F Justice Appleton, Walton, and Associate 

Justices. 

Gentlemen : — The Attorney General of the State of Maine, has my 
complaint against the city of Portland, for taking 23000 square feet 
of land, adjoining and parallel wdth the location of the land, six rods 
in width and fourteen in length, Avhich the Atlantic and St. Law- 
rence Railroad Company took from my land in 1848, by Statute Law, 
and for which land the County Commissioners, in 1849, paid me 
$121, and run the rails and cars across. The city having paid me 



44 

nothing for the land which they have taken — 90 square feet in width 
— for the public street, to be called continuation of " East Commer- 
cial street," and fourteen rods in length across my land ; and it be- 
ing in violation of Article 1, Sect. 20, the undersigned desires the 
Court of Law to determine or pass judgment, and justice to her. 

All the witnesses in the trial before the Supreme Judicial Court, 
were interested parties, and owned land nearly adjoining the street 
taken from me, and Mr. Curtis acknowledged to me that he (Curtis) 
would be an interested party, and Beckett was owner of land very near 
it, to be benefitted by the street, and was in the employ of the city as 
an Assessor, and the Fessendens were my enemies. The undersigned 
brought two witnesses, named James Mountfort and James Dyer, 
whose testimony was ruled out by Judge Davis. No better witnes- 
ses could have been brought, from the fact that they had sold land 
to the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad Company, w^hich the com- 
pany took by Statute Law, not far distant from my land, and sim^ 
ilarly situated, which E. Fox and M. Butler told the company, it 
was in violation of the Constitution, for the Statute Law to give 
them the power to take the land, and the company paid them more 
than they would have asked for the land had the company consulted 
and asked to purchase it of them. They lived always in the locali- 
ty of my land, consequently knew the value of land at the lower 
part of the city. Messrs. Beckett, Fessenden and Gould were not 
required, although they owned land adjoining mine, to give the val- 
ue of it; but they were allowed to testify that I should be benefitted 
by the taking of 23000 feet for the street, when the Assessor Beck- 
ett noAV tells me, that I own only half an acre, from which the 23000 
feet are to be taken ; and two thirtieths also of the half acre belong- 
in common, by deed from me, to Dorcas F. Wilbur and Samuel Plum- 
mer's children. The Court of Equity, in a suit with Dockery and 
Thurston, decided in favor of the latter, and the deeds were accept- 
ed by parties holding bonds, and the bonds were cancelled on the 
acceptance of the deeds, of one-thirtieth each, by the bondholders. 
I am taxed $21.65 for the /ee in the land, which the city hold option- 
al six years, to make, or not, the street, and without leaving me 
the land, the Assessors tax nie, and will sell it next Saturday, if it is 
not paid, and I have no means to pay it unless the city pay me for 
the land. 



45 

I claim that I own six and a half acres of land, minus two-thirtieths 
which I deeded to the bondholders, and which they accepted, and 
cancelled the bond; one-thirtieth I purchased after the bond was 
cancelled of the third bondholder, Joseph Plummer, my brother, 
and one-fifth I paid ray sister Hersey for, although she had only a 
conditional deed from me of the land, and the Probate Court, Judge 
Barrows, confirmed the Commissioners giving that fifth to my hus- 
band's children, one quarter to my two little girls, and three quar- 
ters to my step-sons. 

I throw myself and invalid child under the guardianship of the 
State, and expect that when your Honorable Body have examined 
my case, you will say, that I have had the most remarkable experi- 
ence you ever knew, or read of, as Judge Shepley told me, and will 
give me justice. 

Respectfully yours, JANE P. THURSTON. 

Bangofv, August 2, 1865. 
Enthusiastic and Bewildered Madam : — 

Your letter is received. The Court could and would do nothing. 
You must give no more attention to the mattei". You are now be- 
wildered and will soon be crazy over your troubles, for which there 
can be no remedy. You are unwise to pursue the matter again, or 
any furthei-. Take my advice and drop these endless, useless, wild 
and aerial rambles for what you can never see, feel, touch or obtain. 
Let the past be buried. Look only to the future, and with your 
womanly courage, enterprise, and good health and good looks, you 
will be, I have no doubt, prosperous and happy. 

Your papers are all in the Judges' room ; the officer can get them 
for you. 

Yours, as ever, J. A. PETERS. 



"Government is a necessity; a firm, vigorous government is a 
necessity." "Influence is not government." — Washington. "That 
only is government which can command obedience, and enforce it. 
The existence of society, and of sound order, is possible on no oth- 
er theory." 

Where, then, is the power of the husband to command and en- 
force from the wife obedience to her civil contract, to love, honor 



46 ■ 

and obey him, when he violates his contract "to love, chensh, and 
protect her, and forsaking all others to cleave to her till death ?" ex- 
cept the Statute Lciiv, which he, or his representatives, makes without 
her consent, or her representatives. The mis-representation of an 
important flict makes void a contract. The husband contracts to 
'' endow his w^ife w^ith all his worldly goods." He or his represent- 
atives, not the wife's, enact statute laws in violation thereof, and his 
representative, the Judge of Probate, goes by the statute law thus 
made ; presumed by him to be Constitutional, and; therefore, valid, 
but knovv^n, intuitively, by the wife to be void. Like the Fenian, 
who seeks to establish a nationality or government of liis fatherland, 
the wife seeks to preserve family government as instituted "from 
the begining,'* and ratified by Christ, in St. Mark, lOth chapter, 2 
to 12 verse, in this christian nation, believing his children to be the 
seed of Abraham, in whom all the nations of the earth, (here the 
divine promise) shall be blessed. As the Old Church teach us, that 
when the Lord shall descend from Heaven -in like manner as he 
went up to Heaven in a cloud ; the saints shall judge the earth, and 
as the seed of Abraham, inherit with Christ the whole earth, at his 
second coming, and that the christian, the follower of Christ, should 
labor to establish His kingdom on earth, so that they may appear 
with Him in glory, as children and heirs to the initeiitance reserved 
for them. Or, that if the doctrine of the New Jerusalem Church, 
as tamxht by Swedenboiu-gli, b* true, that 7iatiiral things correspond 
Avitli spiritual, in all things, and that Christ has already come and set 
up His kingdom on earth, and by the influence of His Holy Spirit 
on the minds of His followers, to judge of good or evil ; to cling to 
the good and shun the evil. Christ teaches, put up the sword; "they 
that use the sword shall perish by the sword." " If thy brother 
sue thee at the law, and take thy coat, let him have thy cloak also." 
The Fenians assume a war-like appearance towards the English 
now, after having followed Christ's teachings several centuries; 
whereas, if they would wait, as the wife does, the Lord will en- 
li<>-hten their understandings, so they will see the Irish Republic fill 
into their hands without a struggle, whenever the Prince of Wales 
assumes the title to the Crown of England. Has not the civil con- 
tract of marriage of the Queen and Pnnce Albert been impaired ins 
England'? How, then, is the Prince of Wales legally and legiti- 



47 

mately entitled to the Crown of her Majesty, any more thafi any of 
his children ? England, then, will become also a republic vvithout 
bloodshed, as the United States might have had a bloodless revolu- 
tion by exercising the judgment of saints, in establishing the union 
of the States on the basis of the family union, and the Divine Unity 
and Covenant. 



Portland, July 26, 18()5. 
Mrs. Jane P. Thurston : — 

I will see that you get justice in your matters, and will report to 
you in writing, from Bangor, if you will not call on me or the Court 
again at the session of the present term at Portland. 

J. A. PETERS. 



Portland, July, 18(35. 
Honorable Justices Walton, Danforth and Barrows were witnesses 
to the above agreement, and were parties to it, as were also Chief 
Justices Appleton and Kent, the former of whom told me to consult 
Hon. J. A. Peters, in relation to my claim upon the Judiciary of the 
State, after having read the following letters, and heard me explain 
to them verbally the case. 



To the Ilonorahle Mayor ^ Aldermen and Cltif Council of Portland: — 

The undersigned respectfully represents, that on the 2d of Feb., 
1§64, "The Joint Standing Committee, of Portland, Me., on laying 
out new streets, filed with the City Clerk, at his office, their Report 
of the laying out of 'East Commercial street,' and the * Contin- 
uation of East Commercial street,' to be ninety feet wide, running 
parallel and adjoining the location of the Grand Trunk Railroad, 
which location is six rods wide, and fourteen rods in length, through 
her land, as appears by record ; and said locations are cut at right 
angles by a location for a street, called 'Turner' street, taken by the 
City without compensation or consent, fourteen years since, and not 
yet made, and without compensation for the location of ' Continua- 
tion of East Commercial street,' for the last named street taking 
20,340 feet, less one-tenth, which she and her husband had deeded to 
joint bondholders when they cancelled the bond in 1858, all of which 
doings of the City is illegal and void, being in violation of the Cov- 
enant of the State with the said undersigned, as recorded in Article 



48 

1, Sec. 21, of the Constitution of the State of Maine, viz. : ' Private 
property shall not be taken for public uses without just compensa- 
tion, nor without the public exigencies require it.' (When, as P. 
Barnes, Esq., told her, 'they needed the land for a street no more 
tlian a coach needed five wheels.') 

Sec. 11, Article 1. — 'The State Constitution is a contract with 
the citizens. The Legislature shall pass no law impairing the obli- 
gation of contracts. The Judges shall be governed by the Consti- 
tution, any State or Statute Law to the contrary notwithstanding.' 
She begs leave to protest against its being taken, and begs that the 
City Government will restore it to her, with damages, it being ille- 
gal and therefore void thus to impair the obligation of the Covenant 
of the State, with her, who has been taxed twenty-five years for the 
land, and also to impair the obligation of the joint bondholders, viz. : 
Joseph Plummer and als., who had cancelled the bond on the receipt 
of three deeds of one-thirtieth each, (one-thirtieth of which she 
purchased back,) reserving to the undersigned the choice of lots. — 
The City have, by their action, brought the Supreme Judicial Court 
in conflict with t\\Q judgment in the case of Thurston and Dockray, 
of the Court of Equity of 1857, — who decided that the Me was vest- 
ed in TJmrstoii — and they were held by their Covenant ; and Mr. 
Moses Gould refused a title from her, yet claimed at the Supreme 
Judicial Court, in February last, 1865, to have a title which he gave 
the City to her land ; from a default of their attorney, J. Rand, Esq., 
who has the reputation of acting also for the other party, as attorney, 
thus leaving the Jury in doubt whether the City had not taken from 
her the last foot of land belonj^ino^ to her. She pravs for damag^es 
for a breach of the contracts, and claims the benefit of Section 22, 
Article 1, of the State Constitution. 

Respectfully, JANE P. THURSTON. 

Portland, May, 1805. 

By report it appears that Moses Gould, ever since the death of my 
husband in February, 18G0, has usurped the whole income from my 
land, by letting it as a pasture for co^vs, docking logs, and leasing a 
portion for a small house. But the parties are holden by law, where 
"they impair the obligation of a contract for damages for the direct 
gains they would have received, had the contract been kept." It is 



49 

a general rule that " when a party is not able to protect himself, the 
Courts Avill interfere." — 1 Story on Eq. Jur., 244. Frauds may con- 
sist either in the suppression of the truth or in the mis-representa- 
tion of a fact, and vitiate all contracts from the commencement. — 
3 Chit. Com. Law, 155. Recinding. In general a contract cannot 
be rescinded unless by the consent of both parties. Damages. The 
general rule of law respecting the measure of damages" is, that where 
any injury has been sustained, for which the law gi^-es a remedy, 
that remedy shall be commensurate Avith the injury sustained. — IG 
Pick., 194, 196. The measure of damages in an action for a failure 
to convey land according to Covenant, is the value of land at the 
time the conveyance was to be made. By default of our attorney, 
J. Rand, Esq., the Supreme Judicial Court authorized commission- 
ers to set off to Moses Gould, two-sixtlis of the land vvhich the 
Court of Equity gave judgment belonged to us, and not to the parties 
of whom Moses Gould purchased. And Moses Gould refused to take 
a deed from us, and have the land run out according to the Coven- 
ant we had made witli the bondholders, and which the parties re- 
quired us to fuliil on our part. Mr. Gould knew the running out of 
the land, without notifying us, and after he had agreed with John 
Rand to ^^'ait the return from sea of my husband, was illegal — Mr. 
R. told him so, so Mr. R. informed me; yet, because he thought 
the Commissioners had given him a very large portion, and his 
choice of lots, instead of our choice of lots, as our bond specified, 
Mr. Gould refused to take a title fiom us, so he has no title, unless 
the Supreme Judicial Court assume, through the default of our at- 
torney, to set aside the judgment of the Court of Equity, and pay 
the damages? Then, again, J. Rand, Esq., was notified by my 
agent, that settled the estate of my husband, (Judge Ether Shepiey,) 
that it was illegally set off by Commissioners to Moses Gould, from 
the fact that he had agreed to wait the return of my husband, and 
waited but a short time, and then without notification, or his return, 
set it of; and Mr. Rand, having received from us as an attorney in 
the case, 82G0.00, should have corrected any error, as he had the 
power then to do. 

Liabilities of attornies to their clients. — "If an attorney in the conduct 
of a suit conmiit an act of negligence, whereby all the previous steps 
become useless in the result, he cannot recover for any part of the 



60 

business done, and whether or not in such case the work became 
wholly useless by the plaintiff 's fault, is a question for the Jury. — 
(2 C. M. and E. 547.) 

An Attorney is bound to execute the business entrusted to him 
with a reasonable degree of care, skill and dispatch. If the client 
be injured by the gross fault, negligence or ignorance of the Attor- 
ney, the Attorney is liable. I am informed, o?i good author^y, that J. 
Eand, Esq., acted as Counsellor and Attorney for Moses Gould and 
others in 1863-4, in securhuj to him or his assigns this land, for which 
the payment had then become due, to the parties who were not own- 
ers. Being bought on ten years time, by tho payment down of a 
few hundred dollars, and a mortgage given back. As to the trial 
for damages, in Feb. 1865, for the location, or land, taken by the City 
Grovernment for the continuation of East Commercial Street, it was 
as able Jurors have told, "«orr/«/," from the fact that witnesses 
were 7wt allowed, on the part of the plaintiff, to testify to the value of 
the land, by comparisons or judgment, while the parties on the side 
of the defendant were alloifed to refuse to set a value thereon. 

The value of land in controversy may be proved by the testimony 
of witnesses personally acquainted with the subject, and sufficiently 
familiar with it to give an opinion, although they have never bought 
or sold land in the vicinity, or known or heard of such sales from 
the buyer or seller. Whittemore & Butterfield, E. E. Co." — 7 Al- 
len, (Mass. E.) 313, 



The S. J. Court, in the suit of damages, should have taken the 
testimony of Capt. James M(^untfort and James Dyer, Esq., who 
were competent witnesses, having sold land for Eailroad of the Grand 
Trunk, similarly situated, and which Attornies Butler and E. Fox, 
received heavy damages for them, from the fact, as by report regis- 
tered, that said Eailroad Company could not lawfully appropriate the 
land to their own use without the consent of the ovv'uers, nor with- 
out just compensation. 

The Court should not have allowed Moses Gould to waive his claim 
to the lard which he pretended to have given to the City for the 
"continuation of East Commercial street," thereby leaving the Jury 
in doubt as to the quantity of ];ind taken from the undersigned for 
street, or whether she had any left after the taking of East Com- 



51 

merciai street. She would therefore respeetfully suggest, that the 
full Law Court decide the whole case, and give justice to the parties, 
if the City cannot do it. Respectfully, 

JANE P. THURSTON. 



One of my witnesses (Wm. Curtis) told me that he was anxious 
for a street, as he owned land above his ship-yard ; but he would 
testify to the value of the land, so that I should recover damages, 
and then refused so to testify on the stand. 

Mr. Noble told me the land was worth a dollar a foot; that he 
would thus Avitness, and on the stand refused to know any value. 
So of Jesse Dyer, who, like Curtis, owned outside a wharf privilege, 
and w'anted my land for a street for his own accommodation. And 
the Court would not receive the testimony of James Dyer and James 
Mountfort, Esqrs., who had sold land to the Railroad Company. 



STATE OF "MAINE. 
The Committee on Claims, to whom was referred the petition of 
Jane P. Thurston, praying that she may receive indemnity for her 
land taken for public uses by the City of Portland, and for mal-ad- 
niinistration of the estate of her husband, have had the same un- 
der consideration, and ask leave to report that the petitioner has 
leave to witlidraw. Per order, 

D. T. RICHARDSON, Chairman. 



Is Sex ATE, January 17, 1860. 
Read and acce^oted. Sent down for concurrence. 

THOMAS P. CLEAVES, Secretary. 



House of Repnesextatives, Jan'y 18, 1860. 
Read and concurred. F. M. DREW, Clerk. 



A true copy. Attest : 

THOMAS P. CLEAVES, Secretarv- 



To the United States District Attorney/ : 

Whereas, Wm. H. Kinsman, late Guardian of Charles A. Thurs- 
ton, heir of Henry Thurston, has violated his Bond, in returning no 



52 

inventory, and in making- no- settlement of his accounts at Probate 
Court, the undersigned respectful!}^ j^etitions that your honor will 
cite the said Wm. H. Kinsman and his bondsmen, Charles Dyer 
and Joseph Kinsman's heirs, to appear at the Probate Court and 
report hereon by inventory and settlement. 

JANE P. THUESTON, Widow of said Henry Thurston, 
and Guardian of Ijis Minor Daui>-hter. 



Beg. Fessenden ; 

In No. 401— Thurston vs. The City— it is agreed that the follow- 
ing entry shall be made : " Judgment for defendant, without costs." 

I shall be away to-day, but want the entry made before the old 
woman changes her mind. In haste, DEIJMMOND. 

Peb. 22, 1865. 

AVe don't want to make her pay costs, and don't want any more 
trouble with it. 



I was not consulted, and knew nothing of the agreement, that en- 
try should be made to the forenamed judgment. Mr. Merrill agreed 
that it should cost me nothing, if he recovered nothing. I told him 
" the Jury would find no verdict in favor of me — a woman — against 
tiie City of Portland." He thought and said otliQrwise. I was ful- 
ly persuaded in my own mind ; hence my precaution ; but I felt as- 
sured I could appeal to the Law Ocmrt, and recover dannujes. Judge 



I have looked at the papers in the ease of Mrs. Thurston, and can- 
not see that she has any legal remedy for the wrongs of which she 
complains. B. BRADBUPY. 



Nov. 17, 18(>5. 



I examined tlie papers and the Plans, and in my opinion, the Le- 
gislature has no power to act in relation to the complaints of Mrs. 
Jane P. Thurston, for land taken by the City of Portland for a street, 
and I can therefore do nothing for her. 

January i\ 18GG. JOS. BAKEP. 

Nor do I think they can in relation to mal-administration of the 
estate of her husband. J. B. 



53 

Augusta, Dec. '21, 1865. 
Mrs. Jane F. Thurston .-—The Governor and Council have no pow- 
er to redress your alledged wrongs ; and you are referred to the 
Mayor of the City of Portland. 

SAM'L CONY, Governor. 



Portland, December 5, 1865. 
To the Hon. Judge inderrnan, of the Prolate Court, of the Count ij of 
Cumlerland and State of Maine : 
Whereas, Samuel Trask, Administrator of the Estate of Henry 
Thurston, returned an ioi-tviie and ?'?;^-perfect inventory, in violation 
of his Bond as Administrator, the undersigned petitions your Honor 
to cite the said Samuel Trask into the Probate Court to fulfil his 
Bond, and also his bondsmen, viz : Bufus Cushman and S. A, Whit- 
tier. JANE P. THUESTON, Widow and Guardian. 



Augusta, Dec. 14, 1865. 
Mrs. J. P. Thurston : — The Governor directs that you be informed 
in reference to the enclosed papers, that he has no jurisdiction in 
the case as therein presented ; and that that fact has been announced 
to you on former presentation^ of papers relating to several of the 
statements therein contained. Pespectfully, 

CHAELES HOLDEN, Chairman. 



STATE OF MAINE. 

Eead in Senate, Feb. 24, 1865. 
Ordered, That the verbal memorial of Mrs. Jane P. Thurston, that 
she may have redress by law or equity against the City of Portland 
by taking one-half acre of her land for public use for a street or 
way, as she alleges. 

PIEECE, Cumberland, 
MILLEE, Portland. 
Senator Pierce read the forenamed Order in the Senate, but it 
was rejected. He then referred me to the House of Eepresentatives, 
where Hon. ^Ir. Miller asked leave to read the order, and his friend 
objected to it. Hon. Mr. Pierce then directed me to go to the Gov- 
ernor, and he referred me to the Chairman of the Judiciary Com- 
mittee, who referred me to Congress. I went immediately to Con- 



54 

gress, and Hon. Mr. Morrill, Vice President Hamlin and Hon. Mr. 
Farwell said they ought to be hung for such doings — but said theij 
could do nothing for me. 



STATE OF MAINE. 

Offered to the Bo. of Reps. Feh. 24, 1865. 
Ordered^ That we indemnify Mrs. Jane P. Thurston for half an 
acre of land taken by the City of Portland, and confirmed by the S. 
J. Court, without remuneration, from her for a street to be called 
" East Commercial Street." 

Offered by MILLEE, Portland, 

PIEECE, Cumberland. 



Portland, Feb. 25, 1864. 
To wJiom it may concern : 

This may certify, that I was Attorney for Mrs. Jane P. Thurston 
of this City, at the recent term of the Supreme Judicial Court holden 
in this City, for the County of Cumberland, in a suit against the City 
of Portland, to recover damages for laying out and locating a street, 
called a continuation of East Commercial Street, across her land, 
next to and adjoining the location of the Grand Trunk Pailroad ; 
which location is six rods wide, as appears of record ; and said street 
laid out by said City, is ninety feet wide, in addition, and extends 
across her land, which is one hundred and thirty-eight feet, as ap- 
pears by the survey's plan used by agreement of parties in said trial. 
That her title, as exhibited at said trial, was admitted to be nine- 
tenths (9-10) of the same in common and undivided; thus making 
the amount of land taken twelve thousand, four hundred and twen- 
ty square feet, (12,420 feet,) which good judges had told me, before 
the trial, was worth twenty cents a foot ; and some had set consid- 
erably higher ; but when summoned into Court they refused to thus 
testify as they had stated, and the Jury refused to allow anything, 
and rendered their verdict against the complainant. The City Coun- 
cil had also awarded her 7io damages, from which decision this trial 
was on an appeal, duly and seasonably taken. All of which is re- 
spectfully submitted. 

A. MERPJLL, Att'y and Counsellor at Law, 

No. 64 Middle Street, Portland, Me. 



55 

To whom it may concern : 

Mrs. Jane P. Thurston requests 'me to state in writing, that she 
submitted her papers and her case in relation to hind taken for Com- 
mercial Street to my examination, and that I assisted her in the 
premises so far as I was able, and that my assistance amounted to 
nothing. Such was the fact. P. R. HALL, 

County Treasurer, Att'y at Law. 
Portland, Jan. 20, 1866. 
I also assisted all that I could, 

GEO. W. PARKER, High Sheriff. 

I hereby affirm, that my papers and complaint relating to the tak- 
ing of my land for East Commercial Street, by the City Government 
and others, without compensation, were put into the hands of my 
Attorney, P. R. Hall, Esq., and George W. Parker, the High Sher- 
iff, with a view of receiving of compensation for the land by a Sher- 
iff's Jury ; but on examination into the ca.se, it Avas found that 
judgment had been rendered, as Mr. Drummond, in his note to his 
brother Fessenden asserts,by my agreement, [ivhich assertion is untrue.) 
So the High Sheriff put the papers and complaint into the hands of 
the foreman of the Grand Jury, and the foreman appointed the time 
for me to appear and testify before them. I appeared at the time, 
and was ejected by the prosecuting Attorney; — M. M. Butler, Esq. 

JANE P. THURSTON. 



Adjutant Ge^^eeal's Office, Augusta, Jan. 24, 1866. 
Mes. Jane P. Thueston — 

My Dear Madam : — I regret to inform you that your case is wholly 
beyond my jurisdiction or control. 

Yours, respectfully, 

J. L. HODSDON, Adj't Gen'l. 



National Teadees Bank, 

Poetland, Me., Jan'y 22, 1866. 

To whom it may concern : 

The bearer, Mrs. Jane P. Thurston, transacted business at this 
Bank during the lifetime of her husband, and has to some extent 
since his decease. She has shown capacity and perseverance in her 
business affairs. E. GOITIjD, Cashier. 



56 

UNITED STATES HISTORY. 

Disputes between Great Britain and the Colonies. The Colonies 
urged and maintained their claim to all the rights of English sub- 
jects, and that of these rights none was more indisputable, than that 
no subject could be deprived of his property except by his own con- 
sent, expressed in person or by his representative. 

The United States Constitution, Article 4, Section 4, says: "The 
United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a repub- 
lican form of government, and shall protect each of them against 
invasion, and on application of the Legislature or of the Executive, 
* * against domestic violence." 

Article 1, Section 5, State, says: " Th^ people shall be secure in 
their persons, houses, papers and possessions, from all unreasonable 
searches and seizures," &c. Where has been my protection since 
the death of my father and husband ? 

The only remedy for the distemper of the Government, is for the 
people to demand of their Eulers, or Agents of the Government, to 
adhere strictly to the spirit and letter af the law — the written Con- 
stitution — the Bill of Eights — which is a Covenant of the Govern- 
ment with the People, and which should be inviolably observed by 
Legislators and the Judiciary, by holding them by law amenable to 
the people ; otherwise we have kingly powers exercised in every de- 
partment of Government. 

Very respectfully, ' JANE P. THURSTON. 



I, James Mountfort, of Portland, of lawful age, depose and say, 
that I formerly owned land in the vicinity of the Grand Trunk Rail- 
way Company and Portland Company's Works. I sold my interest 
in said land, from Fore Street to low- water mark, toHhe said Rail-- 
road Company for twelve thousand dollars. I know of land in the 
vicinity which sold as follows, viz: George Turner's lot, 33,502 feet, 
sold for nine thousand dollars, in 1847. Said land was mostly flats. 
The Cammett lot, foot of Hancock Street, on Fore Street, being 
11,575 feet, sold for four thousand dollars, about the same time. A 
lot belonging to my brother, Capt. Daniel Mountfort, of 33,350 feet, 
sold for ten thousand dollars. 

The land of Jane P. Thurston is somcthinsr like one-fourth of a 



57 

mile distant from the above lots sold the Railroad Company — being 
the same taken by the City of Portland for a public street. 

I further depose and say, that I was summoned to appear at the 
Supreme Judicial Court, in Portland, in January, 1865, as a witness 
to the value of land in the vicinity of Mrs. Thurston's land, in a 
suit commenced by her against the City of Portland, and was sworn. 
A question was put to me in relation to the value of land in the vi- 
cinity of Mrs. Thurston's, but the question was objected to, and 
ruled out by the Court, as I could not testify to the value of her 
land, which I had not examined with a view to ascertaining its val- 
ue. I did not therefore testify in the case. 

If allowed to testify in Mrs. Thurston's case, I would have testi- 
fied as I do in this affidavit. 

JAMES MOUNTFORT. 



Cumberland, ss : — Jan'y 20, 1866. 

• Subscribed and sworn to before me, 

J. O'DONNELL, Justice of the P 



I, James Dyer, of Portland, of lawful age, depose and say that I 
w^as summoned in January, 186j, to the Supreme Judicial Court, 
setting at Portland, to testify to the value of land in the vicinity of 
the Portland Company's Works and Grand Trunk Railway Com- 
pany, in the case of Jane P. Thurston vs. City of Portland, and 
offered to testify that I sold land to the Grand Trunk Company 
about the year 1850, a lot of 22 feet on Fore street, with a cooper's 
shop on it, for the sum of three thousand dollars. But my testi- 
mony was not received, and was ruled out because I could not testi- 
fy to the value of her lot. This land sold by me was three-sixteenhs 
of a mile from her land taken for a public street. 

JAMES DYER. 



Statp: op Maine, ) 

Cumberland County ss. Jan. 20, 18G5.J" 
Personally appeared, James Dyer, and made oath to the truth of 
the above affidavit by him subscribed. 

Before me, J. O'DONNELL, 

• Justice of the Peace. 



58 

STATE OF MAINE— Olmberlaxd ss. 

At the Supreme Judicial Court, bcguu aud held at Portland, with- 
in and for said County of Cumberland, on the third Tuesday of 
Aprii, being the twentieth dny of said month, in the year of our 
Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-eight. 

Present Hox. Woodbury Davis, Justice. 

27 James R. Bochvay and als. in Eqinty vs. Henry Thurston and ux. 
S. & D. Rand. 

Bill filed Sept. 19, 1853; Sub. issued Sept. 22, 18.53, returnable 
Oct. 1, 1853, Ans. filed Dec. 28, 1853. April, 1854, death of M. 
A. S. Dockray sug. EepeHant to Ans. of H. Thurston and ux., 
filed June G, '5G. (See April Term, 1857,) Court. Jan. Term, 1858, 
Court. 

Bill dismissed with costs for Defendants 17. Judo-ment for De- 
fendants, costs $80.42. Exon. issued May 14, 1858. 

A true copy of Docket entries for April Term, 1858. 

Attest: D. W. FESSENDEN, Clerk. 



To the Honorable Committee on Clahiis, and the Legislature, Jan., 1866: — 
It being repugnant to the Constitution of this State, the judgment 
rendered in No. 461, Thurston vs. The City, is not valid, and there- 
fore the said Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine erred in 
rendering judgment on the said verdict in fiivor of Appellee, and 
that the said Court ought to have rendered judgment thereon that 
the said Thurston recover against the said City of Portland the 
amount of damages found and assessed by her impartial witnesses 
whose testimony was ruled out by the Court, viz. $20,000, — 
w^hereupon may it please the Honorable Committee and Legislature 
to consider, order, and adjudge that the aforesaid judgment of said 
Supreme Judicial Court of the State of Maine, be reversed and an- 
nulled, and this Honorable Committee and Legislature proceed to 
render such judgment in the premises as the said Supreme Judicial 
Court ought to have rendered ; and to further consider, now here, 
that the said Thurston do recover the aforesaid sum of twenty 
thousand dollars, with cost of suit ; and be it now here further or- 
dered, that a special mandate or order go from this Committee and 
the Legislature, to carry this judgment into execution. Also, for 
damages of $30,000 for land taken for the Eastern P#omenade with- 



59 

out compensation, and against my protests, and opened to the public. 
Tliey took 82,368 square feet for the Promenade, 150 by 528. An 
order to grade the Promenade was laid on the table of the City Gov- 
ernment a month or two since. 

In November, 1850, the City took for Turner street, 40,250 square 
feet, and contemplated taking 13,250 feet additional from me. Tur- 
ner street is not yet made, although the tax was increased from $6. 10 
to JBIOO-OO and upwards per acre, without the least improvement 
from pasture land. In Sept., 18G5, an order icas passed to grade Tur- 
ner street. I notified the City of the illegality of the order, and pe- 
titioned for damages, but they refused to give me a hearing on the 
question of damages. $15,000 damages for Turner street, I estimate 
it, all of which I respectfully submit to your Honorable Bod}^ ; also 
for 6 rods by 32 rods for the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad. — 
The County. Commissioners awarded $121 in 1848, and charged for 
fees, 631, attorney's, $10, which left S80 ; took $125 worth of rocks, 
paid 40, which leaves a balance of $5 less than nothing from the 
Railroad Company. 

JANE P. THURSTON. 



Augusta, January, 186G. 
To the Hon. Committee on Claims of the House of Bepresentatives and Sen- 
ate of the State of Maine : 
I herewith present to you the following bill for land taken by the 
City of Portland, for the purpose hereinafter mentioned, without 
paying me the damages for the same, and contrary to the Constitu- 
tion of the United States and of this State. The following is the 
amount of land taken: 

23,000 feet of land for East Commercial Street, valued 

at twenty thousand dollars, $20,000 00 

40,350 feet for Turner Street, fifteen thousand dollars, 15,000 00 

82,308 feet for Promenade, thirty thousand dollars, 30,000 00 



Making in- all, sixty-five thousand dollars. $C5,000 00 

JANE P. THURSTON. 



60 

I have labored with untiring zeal, seeing the end from the begin- 
ning, to work out a Plan of salvation of Family and National Union 
and Government, based on the Gospel System, for this Christian Na- 
tion, in the bond of peace and righteousness. Trusting it may be 
accepted as the only plan of salvation whereby we can be saved, I 
bid you, my reader, an affectionate adieu, assuring you that I cher- 
ish .toward none other than the most kind and charitable feelings, 
and saying to all, friends and foes, " Go, and sin no more." 

God help us all so to do. 

JANE P. THURSTON. 




SUPPLEMENT TO ETHICS. 
THE UNIONS' and" THE CONSTITUTION. 



Portland, July 15, 18C5. 
To HIS Excellency Goveknok Cony: 

Sir : — I can hardly deterraine sometimes whether silence or 
speaking will best serve my interest in procuring justice at the hands 
of the Government. Certain I am of one thing — that eventually I 
must succeed. We have reached the end of law — of Family Government — 
in this State of Maine, as Judge C * * and Judge W "-'• * have ac- 
knowledged. Since jM. M. Butler, Esq., and Judge Kingsbury have 
refused to lile a complaint and give a warrant for parties who have 
violated the law of the State of Maine — the Article 1, Sec. 20, 21, 
the Mayor ;ind Assessors violated, and also Judge Davis violated the 
same Sec. 20, Art. 1, and the cases have been cited by me to you, 
proving the fact, and which I may again recite : it becomes the duty 
of your Excellency to take some action in the case, to see that the 
laws of the State of Maine, of whom you are the chief Executive, are 
legally enforced. I say that I will prove that Family Government 
has been destroyed ih this State by the administrators of the Gov- 
ernment. 1st — Take the case of my father, Moses Plummer, J]-., 
who was the son of Moses Plummer, Sen., of Portland. Look in 
the Records of the Probate Court, and you will find the Judge of 
Probate approved, in 1825-C, of the Will of the latter, disinheriting 
the former, the only surviving child, except a legacy of two dollars. 
The case was brought before the S. J. Court, and by agreement of 
Counsel referred back to the Probate Court for a settlement — one- 
fJurd of the re«/ ettate being deeded by the Executor to Moses Plum- 
mer, my father. But the Executor did not sell the two remaining 
thirds, as commissioned by the Wdl of Moses Plummer, Sen., and the 
City and County have appropriated to their own use, for public 
buildings, the land. I say, as the heir of the Covenant of Marriage, 
my father, Moses I^lummer, Jr., like Isaac, the son of Abraham and 
Sarah, could not be cut off from his inheritance by the approval of 
any Judge of Probate or other.Court Judge. If he could be cut ofi', 
it establishes the fact, that the c»^ of this State are all Ishmaelites— 
children of the law — children of concubines — that can be cast out 
like Ishmael, the son of Abraham and ITag:ir — cast out without in- 
heritance. 2d — My father, Moses Plummer, Jr., was the duly ap- 
pointed Agent of his father, as I have seen the written power, signed 
by his father, among the papers since mother's death in 18C0; and 
my father, for forty years, transacted his father's business, and he 
leased to the County the land, for the Legislature of Maine to put up 
the County Building on the corner of Congress and Myrtle Streets, 



and gave the Jail lot, which reverted back when the County took 
away the Old Jail for the ISTew City Hall. Then, again, the New 
Jail, as near as I can learn, is placed on the land which belonged to 
my father and grand-father. The second proof I bring of there be- 
ing no Family Government, is the fact that my father, with all his 
knowledge of law, could not devise a method to keep the peace and 
Union of his own family. It disturbed his dying moments, even. 
He prided himself in saying, '' that Y)eople told him he had the like- 
liest family in the City of Portland ;" but he had experienced the ivork- 
ings of the law, to the destruction of Union and peace in families. He 
told me, in 1840, when he and mother gave me a deed of six and a 
half acres of land on Munjoy Hill, that a Deed was stronger than a 
Will. On his death-bed, in 1847, he told me, "the land is yours, 
Jane; you may lease it for your mother her life time, perhaps." 

Wm. P. Fessenden and Shepley & Dana however sued us, and 
tried it up, through the agency of John Rand, Esq., defaidt by the 
aid of the S. J. Court, in conflict with the decision of the Court of 
Equity, so that the land has been a heavy hill of expense for taxes, &c. , 
instead of a revenue. My husband saw the working of the law, and 
he appointed me his Executrix, and by his Covenant of Marriage — " I 
give you all ; let us draw together and save something for our old 
age," — which Covenant Judge Barrows refused to keep, and scat- 
tered the estate my husband and myself had byour industry and pru- 
dence acquired, so that the Family Government is destroyed, and it 
is a violation of the moral law and of the State law. It is fraud for 
the clergyman to go throvgh the rite of marriage. It is simply a Civil 
Contract, binding, without consideration sufiicient — the woman to live 
with the man, called husband, until the Court decree her free by the law, 
and at liberty to live with another man. In violation of Christ's 
teaching, in Matt. 5th chapter, and St. Mark, 10th chap., 2 to 12. 
Respectfully, J. P. THURSTON. 



May 12, 1865, at the United States Hotel, Portland, Maine, in 

presence of, and aided by, Judge , of Washington, J. A. Peters, 

Attorney General of the State of Maine, examined documentary 
proof of the taking, and the S. J. Court siisfaining the taking, of my 
land for East Commercial Street;:^ the City Government of Port- 
land, without compensation. He told me, then and there, that I 
should receive justice through his agency, but he must first consult 
with others ; and he paid me on the instant five dollars, as a pledge. 
I heard nothing from him till the Law Court met in July. I pre- 
sented to the full bench my case in full, as related in this letter to 
the Governor, in writing, and the Justices accepted at my hands the 
case, a portion of which has herein been published, and the Chief 



Justice and his Associate Justices promised me justice as soon as 
they could examine into the merits of the case. Subsequently the 
Chief Justice referred me to the Attorney General, when I answered 
his inquiry wliat Counselor I employed, and I told him Attorney 
General Peters liad engaged, as above related, to secure for me justice^ 
He said I could find him then, as he had arrived here from Bangor 
that day. I called on Hon. Mr. Peters, and he told me to come next 
morning to the Court. I did so. He gave me the written promise 
of justice, (see page 47,) with the co,usent of three of the Judges to 
whom he read it over twice, and the three other Judges I met on 
the stairs on my coming down. His promised Report I herein have, 
on page 45, published not without giving him due notice of; for I 
saw him at the Legislature in January last, and again urged my 
claim ; and while at the desk of the Clerk of the House of Pepre- 
sentatives, to obtain the Revised Statutes to show him, he slipped 
away. Gov. Cony and his Council saw the documentary proof of 
* my statements in relation to the mal-administration of the estate of 
my husband, and of the S. J. Court in relation to the City of Port- 
land taking my land without any compensation. The Governor ap- 
pointed nine o'clock as the hour for me to meet him and his Coun- 
cil, which appointment I complied with Dec. 14, 1865, in their rooms 
in the Capitol. The result was, the Governor gave me the letter of 
the same date, to Mayor McLellan, herein published, and told me 
he and his Council could do nothing more. But on my representing 
that I depended on the payment of my claim in order to meet my 
traveling expenses, as well as other bills I was owing, he bade me 
wait a moment in his room, while he again entered the room of his 
Counselors. He immediately returned, and gave me one dollar and 
fifty cents, and immediately re-entered the Council Poom ; and I then 
tendered my grateful acknowledgements, and craved for them this 
blessing — " As ye have meted torne, may the Lord measure unto 
you." I told Gov. Cony that his letter to the Mayor of Portland did 
not cover the whole ground — the mal-administration of Judge Barrows. He 
said his letter contained all matters of which I had complained. I had sent 
the complaints and the documentary proof thereof the week previ- 
ous, by Hon. Charles Holden, one of the Governor's Council, for 
them to settle with me, and which the Hon. Mr. C. returned by mail 
the day I went to Augusta, and which is herein published. The 



Hon. Atr. Vinton, in the State Library, after the conversation allu- 
ded to herein, (pages 26 and 27,) paid me five dollars, which, was, 
with Governor Cony's and Attorney General Peters', a virtual ac- 
knowledgement, {and as such I received each of them,) of the justice of 
my claim. 

It is written that " the saints shall judge the earth." Well, let us 
try the test : Take, for instance, and apply to this Natwn the sin of 
King David, as expounded by Nathan to the King — "Thou art the 
man " that hast committed the sin against, God and thy neighbor, 
inasmuch as thou being a Sovereign Euler hast allowed the sin to 
exist by thine own consent in divorcing and destroying Family Gov- 
ernment, on which principle the National Government is based. 
Take the parable of the man that owed the hundred pence, and his 
Lord forgave him the debt, who went out and found one that owed 
him, and cast him into prison. Take the parable of the Prodigal 
son, who was met by his father afar ofiP, and who made a feast for 
joy; whose brother, hearing music and dancing, and learning the 
cause, vras angry and would not come in ; therefore came his ftither 
out, (like President Johnson to Congress,) and entreated him, saying, 
" all that I have is thine ; it is meet that we should make merry and 
be glad, for this thy brother was dead and is alive again ; he was 
lost, and is found." The Lord has sent His Holy Spirit to this Na- 
tion to enlighten, through His Word, their understanding, if He has 
not come Himself, and His Saints will be known by their judgment. 
By their prints ye shall know them. 

I am willing to forgive all the wrongs I have received from Gov- 
ernment officials, who have brought death and destruction into my 
father's and husband's families, and produced discord, and scattered 
and wasted my estate, on the ground that they in like manner for- 
give every man his brother, and on no other condition am I war- 
ranted by the Holy Scriptures to do it. "A^ ye would that men 
should do to you, do ye also unto them," is the injunction. 

The Prophet Nathan assured* 'King David, that as a punishment 
for his sin, described in the parable of the " ewe lamb," the kingly 
povrer should pass away from his family — the same as this Govern- 
ment will from the descendants of our Pevolutionary Fathers, and the 
sons of her Mnjesty Queen Victoria, (God bless her,) unless the sin 
of Treason against the Divine Law, he immediately repented of hij all the 
people of all ages and conditions. God help us all so to repent as to 
l)e saved temporally as a Nation, and eternally saved from this the 
unpardonable ^m— Treason. ' J. P. THUESTON. 



